Healthy Peanut Butter Apricot Bars

Happy belated mothers day!  

Peanut Butter Apricot Bars

I know, it's 2 days late.  I would have loved to make this post on Sunday.  But it's never too late to make your wonderful mother a healthy treat to show your love!  Did you know that stay at home moms have the same work equivalent at 4 full time jobs?  No, you can't quote me as a scholarly source with that statistic, but with how hard my mom works I certainly believe it!

Food processor ingredients

Blended

Funny story, I originally made these peanut butter apricot bars as cookies, but they came out with the wrong texture, and now they are much better as bars!  Since these aren't AIP, I have never tasted them, but I got as many people as possible to try them and give me feedback.  I've edited the recipe several times until now; I'm consistently satisfied with my results!

The Dough

This last time I made these, I fed them to my bible study group for our last meeting.  I also brought my AIP fruit salad dessert, which everyone enjoyed.

This recipe isn't AIP, or paleo, but with the exception of the chocolate chips, I consider it pretty healthy, especially since this is a dessert!  If you want, you can do all chocolate chips instead of raisins, or all raisins instead of chocolate chips.  You can do all coconut oil instead of palm shortening, or vice versa.  You can do all honey instead of maple syrup, or vice versa.  To make this recipe vegan, use 2 egg substitutes, all maple syrup, and omit the chocolate chips.  To make it paleo, substitute all coconut for oats, coconut or almond milk for the oat milk, omit the chocolate chips, and use a different nut butter.  I encourage you to play around with the recipe!

Yield: 12 bars
Ingredients

• ¾ C dried apricots (6 oz)
• ½ C shredded coconut
• 1 C + 2 tbsp oats
• ½ tsp coconut extract
• ¼ C peanut butter
• 1 tbsp coconut oil
• 1 tbsp palm shortening
• ¼ C oat milk
• 2 eggs
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 tbsp maple syrup
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• ¼ C raisins
• ¼ C chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and grease or line a square 9 x 9 pan
2. Blend the apricots, coconut oil, palm shortening, coconut extract, oat milk, honey, maple syrup, peanut butter, ¼ C shredded coconut, and ¼ C oats in a food processor 
3. Transfer to a container
4. In a separate container, mix the remaining oats (¾ C + 2 tbsp) and remaining coconut (¼ C), cinnamon, baking powder, and salt
5. Add the two eggs to the wet ingredients and mix
6. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients
7. Mix in the raisins and chocolate chips
8. Pour into the pan
9. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes at 350 degrees 
10. Cool before cutting

Substitutions

- vanilla extract for coconut extract

- coconut, almond, or dairy milk for oat milk

- chocolate chips and raisins are interchangeable