Chocolate-marshmallow granola bars.

Do you like chocolate? Of course you do. Marshmallows? I know you like those as well. Would you like to eat them both at the same time, without the messiness of s’mores, and be at least kind of convinced that they are healthy for you?

Once upon a time, Red and I found ourselves with too many Sweet & Sara’s marshmallows. Unbelievably, there is such a thing. I love s’mores, but I was getting tired of making them every. single. night. I needed help. Kelly @ easyVegan helped me. Her recipe for Chewy Chocolate Marshmallow Granola Bars is here, and you should hoard all the chocolate and marshmallows you can find so you can make a massive batch of these and eat nothing else ever ever again.

These granola bars are ridiculously easy to make, and because they contain four cups of oatmeal, they are totally healthy for you. (Well, okay, I suppose it depends on your definition of “totally,” but I’m not your nutritionist, so there.) The hardest part was chopping up the marshmallows. I used our kitchen scissors, but the marshmallows were sticky and gummed them up. Regardless, my hand got a workout and the marshmallows were eventually sliced into small little niblets of sugary awesome. To make sure they stayed that way and didn’t glom into one huge monster ‘mallow when I mixed them into the granola, I tossed them with a little flour first. This is an excellent baking tip that my mom taught me, and it works for suspending anything you don’t want to sink to the bottom of your dough or batter.

Then it was into the pan with everything, extra chocolate chips sprinkled on top, and into the oven at 425°.

Ahem. Did you click over to easyVegan for the recipe yet? Because if you did, you may have noticed that these little beauties are supposed to be baked at 325°, not 425°. I overshot the temperature by a hundred fuckin’ degrees.

Happily, this potential epic fail ended happily. After 20 minutes in the superheated oven (which, we have recently realized, runs about 50 degrees cool), the granola bars smelled like heaven and looked divine. It took our combined willpower to let them cool before slicing into them.


The verdict? We shouldn’t have given as many bars away to our friends and coworkers. (It was a particularly sneaky form of vegan advocacy.) Damn our generosity! They were so incredible that we easily could have eaten the entire pan. I should have pre-melted the chocolate chips that I scattered on top (they stayed pretty solid), but that was our only snafu. The marshmallows were a perfect addition, and the oatmeal made the bars so hearty that I was satisfied after only a few bites.

In conclusion: Make these. But don’t have me pre-heat your oven.