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)
Interesting! I’m game for giving these a try— except I may become addicted 😉 Oh well!
Wow – I will be making these as soon as humanly possible.
I think this is my fave recipe of yours so far. I love cake batter anything–similar to cookie dough, it’s even better when it’s vegan because you can lick & nibble all you want without being scared about food poisoning.
I love the pictures you provide of the finished product, theyre great!
Have you ever considered providing some pictures of the process? I know they really help me make sure the recipe is at the right texture during the steps and such.
I wrote a post asking about it here: https://lett-trim.today/2012/03/31/behind-the-scenes/%3C/a%3E%3Cbr /> But it turns out most people were against it. 😕
I just read the first ~20 comments and glanced above the rest and almost all of them said they’d love the idea? Maybe you could make a poll or something. But I don’t get how one could be against the idea anyway, because it’s just so helpful, esp. with vegan baking and consistencies…But I mean, no one needs 10+ pictures of you filling a muffin tin or squishing down the batter of these energy bars, obviously. So step-by-step wouldn’t even be necessary, just 1 or 2 photos!
Included one in today’s post just for you guys ;).
These look unreal! Something about cake batter in anything always looks so good! It’s the little kid coming out in me 🙂
Katie:
Do you ever use date syrup or date paste in your recipes?
Personally, I think dates are a healthier sweetener than agave, honey, or maple syrup. But when the sugar source is needed to be sticky to bind things together, its hard to substitute…
Hi there –
So I tried working with soaked dates for this one today. Overall it was a fail, but not enough to stop me from continuing trying.
Where I live date paste is hard to find which leaves me trying to create a puree in a food processor and it just isn’t working. I actually like agave and have made the peanut butter version of these multiple times with agave but I think agave might be upsetting my stomach a bit so I have been playing around with other options.
Taste-wise my date “fail” today was less sweet than the agave versions I have done, but I did absolutely no research on substitute quantities and to be honest I still liked how it taste.
Oh! And because there was water in my dates it changed the consistency of the rice crispies. Didn’t see that coming…but that is why I love playing with this stuff. 🙂
Wow! Thanks for letting me know! :)) Yeah I’ve only ever made my own date paste (by soaking dates, then blending the dates and however much soaking liquid is necessary in the blender) and syrup (by first simmering, then blending), but I know buying it commercially would give more consistent results. I have a very sad blender and my food processor just broke, so I definitely need something stronger to make a good quality paste. But YAY for fun attempts!
I tend not to use it for that reason.
You can’t buy it commercially, and I try to make the recipes as quick and easy as possible. Honestly, I could do so much more (and make the recipes even healthier) by trying out less-common ingredients like spirulina, date paste, homemade fruit purees (as sweetener), etc… But not everyone would be able/willing to find these ingredients or step out of their comfort zones to try something so different.
But I DO use it sometimes… like in the cookie dough dip! 🙂
Hi Katie!
Just wanted to put my two cents in: I love the ease (no homemade fruit purees) and affordability (no dates) of your recipes.
Thanks!
These look amazing 😀 Do you think I’d be possible to sub in peanut butter for the cashew butter though?
Oh wow! What a treat!
The pictures alone rocked my face off! I’ve never tried cashew butter.. I’m guessing that is the flavor that contributes to the extra cake batter flavor??
Ooooh yum, I bet coconut butter would make it super cake battery too!