These healthy cake batter energy bars will rock your face off.
Addictively delicious no-bake energy bars that taste surprisingly like cake batter.
It’s weird, but they really do!
Now that I’ve finally started posting videos (what took me so long?!), I’m going back to some of the most popular recipes of three to four years ago to remake them, add videos, and see if I can make the original recipes even healthier.
In the case of these cake batter bars, I’ve improved upon the original recipe—this new version makes a much bigger batch and is also lower in sugar.
The sprinkles add a fun touch, but it’s actually not the sprinkles that make these bars taste like cake batter, so feel free to omit them if you desire.
The first time I made these cake batter energy bars was on one particular Saturday afternoon when a friend came to visit with her four-year-old daughter.
With the leftover sprinkles, we thought it’d be fun to make sprinkle maracas by pouring the sprinkles into containers (as seen above) and shaking.
But the little girl was more interested in a family of bugs she found in front of the house.
Using leaves and rocks, she spent about an hour constructing a home for “Bobby” the roly poly bug.
Then she decided he needed food, and so she proceeded to dump the entire contents of her sprinkle maraca onto the ground for Bobby to eat.
Obviously Bobby took no interest in this sustenance.
But I think we’ll now be getting ants.
Going back to these cake batter bars.
Just 6 ingredients in these easy-to-make and kid-friendly energy bars that need no refrigeration and can be customizable to fit allergy-friendly diets as well.
My favorite nut butter to use in these bars is cashew butter, but any nut butter—or even Sunbutter or Peabutter—will work here.
As always with my recipes, be sure to use pure vanilla extract, not imitation vanilla or vanilla flavoring.
And you can replace the sprinkles with raisins or even mini chocolate chips if your heart desires.
Protein powder can also be added if you want a higher-protein snack bar.
Cake Batter Energy Bars
Ingredients
- 2 cups rice crispies (brown, white, or gf)
- 1 cup oat flour, or make your own by blending rolled oats then measuring 1 cup
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 6 tbsp roasted cashew butter, or allergy-friendly sub
- 1/2 cup agave or honey
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- handful sprinkles, optional
Instructions
- *If desired, you can replace up to half of the oat flour with your favorite protein powder.Combine all dry ingredients and stir well. In a separate bowl, whisk together liquid ingredients to form a thin paste. (If your nut butter is cold, warm it a little for easier mixing.) Then stir together all ingredients to form a batter. Line an 8×8 pan with parchment or wax, and smooth the batter into the pan. A trick is to use a second sheet of parchment over top to spread the batter and press it firmly into the pan. Really press it down as hard as you can. Refrigerate or freeze to harden, then cut into bars.View Nutrition Facts
Video
Notes
More Healthy Dessert Recipes
Homemade Chocolate Bars (3 Ingredients)
What a fabulous website this is, love your recipes! Would really like to feature one of your cakes, the cake batter energy bars on my party blog. I’m writing a post on no bake cakes.
Would you be happy for me to use your photographs I’ll be linking back to you for your recipe of course and will give you and your blog good credit. Look forward to hearing from you!
Will Aalmond butter work instead of cashew butter?
**almond
Yes, of course.
I tried this bars with peanut butter and it still tastes like cake batter. They are so GOOD!
I loved this recipe! I also made some substitutions and made a great chocolate & peanut bitter version with chocolate chips instead of sprinkles!
That’s acute story! I think the 4 year old will be feeding ants though 🙂 The recipes looks delicious 🙂
Katie, I tried making these with natural peanut butter. They turned out well! As mentioned, they don’t have the “cake-batter” flavour, but instead they taste like peanut butter Rice Krispies. Also, they are a little soft, though I don’t know how sturdy they are supposed to be if made with cashew butter.
Excited to try this recipe for my daughter’s school lunches! I am glad to see lots of positive reviews from people who have substituted PB for Cashew butter. Peanuts are fine in my daughter’s class, but there are no tree nuts allowed! I’m sure a new recipe into the lunch rotation will help spice things up a little.
Just wanted to update – I made these with natural peanut butter and honey, and they are very good! My daughter enjoys them a lot, and they are safe for the tree but free classroom. Don’t be afraid to make the PB and honey substitutions, they will still turn out yummy.
I just made these using crushed up rice Chex & peanut butter with mini chocolate chips. My kids loved them!!!!! Going to make a quadruple batch tonight. I can’t wait to try with cashew butter. I didn’t have enough cashews to make my own. Thanks for a healthy recipe that my kids will eat!!!
I happened to have all these ingredients lying around including multi colored rice crispies!!!(no sprinkles needed! Lol) I used half almond flour, half vanilla whey isolate, raw cashew butter and only 5-6 (eyeballed it) tsp of maple syrup. The rest stayed the same. Oh.my.gawd. Let’s just say I made a good sized bar for my sister and ended up eating the rest of the “batter” right then and there. It was freaking delicious!!! Clearly, I can never make these again, haha! Thanks for the recipe. Your site is awesome 🙂
Instead of rice krispies – can I use corn flakes?