A healthy take on carrot cake, drizzled in cinnamon frosting, for quick and tasty on the go breakfast.
This post was originally posted in 2014. I’ve updated the pictures and slighted modified the recipe — using flax instead of eggs and added a cinnamon sugar frosting. Which has been our habit lately. And I must say the frosting makes for a prettier bar and something akin to cinnamon strudel carrot cake… yep, it is good.
I just needed to say “Hi” I didn’t mean to drop off the face of the internet. Between end of school activities, soccer, family celebrations, try-outs and just busy summer stuff, I’m tired. I feel the mental drain. I have been decompressing with embarrassingly trashy pulp fiction lately… anything that makes me think is just too hard. I haven’t been cooking. It’s been grab and go food for weeks. School lunches – nope, I’m officially out of ideas. Somehow longer summer days does not equate with more time in the kitchen or browsing cookbooks. I’m okay with this, even though the blog suffers a bit. Sure, I could have planned better. I believe we all need to recharge and take a break. It’s all good. So, HI. I’m still alive. It’s true.
I do have a recipe for you. Carrot Cake Breakfast bars. I know! My kids were pretty excited about having carrot cake for breakfast. A simple little breakfast bar that will make a few mornings easier. Not too sweet but sweet enough for first thing in the morning. Make ahead and grab and go. Recipe inspired by this recipe at LeanGreenBean blog.
A few notes about these Carrot Cake Breakfast Bars:
- This recipe is essentially vegan. If you don’t have ground flax on hand or just prefer baking with eggs, one egg can replace the ground flax with no change to baking times, etc.
- For sweetness, use your favourite liquid sweetener. I tend to use honey or maple syrup – but agave or brown rice syrup are nice too. I haven’t tried this recipe with a dry sweetener like sugar, brown sugar, etc.. So I don’t know how it would turn out.
- You can skip the frosting – but why? Well… in case you want to freeze these, the frosting gets very sticky for long-term storage
- These babies are essentially fat-free. They will dry out fairly quickly, so do yourself a favour and wrap up whatever is leftover and stash them in the freezer if you want these to last you more than a couple of days. Straight out of the freezer, these bars make great grab-and-go snacks. Just wrap un-frosted bars individually in plastic wrap and store in the freezer. My kids usually eat them up in a day or two. so I have been adding the frosting and don’t bother freezing.
- I “LOVE” walnuts here — a generous half cup
- Makes 8 generous sized bars or 16 snack sized.
Carrot Cake Breakfast Bars
Ingredients
- ¾ cup almond milk
- ½ cup almond butter or nut butter of your choice – peanut, sunflower, etc
- 1 tsp vanilla
- ¼ cup mashed banana about 1/2 of a large banana
- ¼ cup liquid sweetener agave, maple syrup or brown rice syrup
- 1 cup grated carrot about 2 large
- 2 tablspoons ground flaxseed meal
- 1½ cup rolled oats
- 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp cinnamon
for the frosting:
- 1 cup icing sugar
- 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1-2 tablespons of almond milk or more to desired consistancy
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350
- Line an 8X8 baking pan with parchment paper and set aside.
- In a bowl, combine the first 7 ingredients and mix well.
- Add remaining ingredients and stir until just combined.
- Spoon into the prepared baking pan and bake for 32-35 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center of bars comes out clean.
- Once completely cool, cut into bars.
- Combine icing sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Add almond milk, 1 tablespoon at a time and mix well before adding more. Repeat until desired consistency is reached. I prefer a thicker glaze. Drizzle over bars. Allow glaze to harden before storage.
- Alternative, skip frosting and wrap each bar individually in plastic wrap and store in the freezer for quick take-along snacks.
Helpful tools for this recipe:
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Hi, I’m Trish. I share quick and healthy recipes designed to get you through your busy days, balanced with a generous serving of sweet and decadent treats for weekends and special occasions. You will find vegan, gluten-free and plant-based recipes here too. Thanks for visiting!
Dolores Rush says
this sounds great, have all the ingredients in the cupboard will give it a try. So many of the breakfast bars have some form of chocolate and are too sweet which I am very tired of this sounds great.
Jerilyn says
Hi, can you use oat flour instead of wheat flour, or is the wheat flour essential to these bars? Thanks!
Trish says
I haven’t tried these bars with oat flour. The amount is relatively small and really just gives the bars some body. Oat flour will change the texture slightly.