Puffed quinoa granola bars with dark chocolate ganache and coconut flakes

Not your ordinary granola bar

Apr 03, 2025

∙ Paid

A few weeks ago I shared with you my latest granola obsession, made with puffed quinoa and rice, dried fruits, nuts, peanut butter and grape molasses. Well guess what? I turned that granola into bars and they’re fantastic. We can’t stop munching on them.

It’s that same addictive flavor of the granola but in bar form, topped with a rich dark chocolate ganache flavored with coffee liqueur and topped with dried coconut flakes. To me, the flavor combination is heavenly.

Essentially, you take the recipe for the granola, which makes two trays, so you can have a big batch of granola to eat for breakfast, about two large jars, and you turn the second tray into twenty big chocolate ganache bars to have either for breakfast or a special treat.

As bars, they are a bit crumbly at the bottom but heck, I don’t mind and wouldn’t change a thing in the recipe because they taste fantastic. The granola is made with puffed rice and quinoa, walnuts and almonds, dried figs, apricots and raisins, with the sweetening agents being petimezi (grape molasses) and soft dark brown sugar. There’s some butter in there and also peanut butter to hold everything together and some ginger and cinnamon for a heady, aromatic kick.

You bake it in the oven until it takes on some color and one tray is reserved for the regular granola which you can break up in chunks or smaller pieces if you prefer, whereas the second tray is for the bars. Or you can just make two batches of bars, the choice is yours. You don’t break that up because you need the whole tray to be in one piece, so once it has cooled, you cover it with a rich dark chocolate ganache which I chose to flavor with Kahlua. You could substitute with Frangelico (hazelnut liqueur) or Amaretto (almond liqueur) depending on your taste, or just add some vanilla extract if you don’t want to add any alcohol. Oh, and the dried flaked coconut on top is key.

They are light even though they contain a lot of ingredients, they’re not too sweet and they’re nutty, with crunchy and soft textures, little sticky from the dried fruits and gooey from the rich, smooth chocolate ganache. The combination of flavors is quite special and the topping of the coffee-flavored chocolate ganache and dried coconut flakes is like the cherry on top.

Hope you enjoy them! Tag me on instagram if you make them so I can see them.