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)
The sprinkles are just so cheery! My 15-year-old would adore them, as he STILL thinks sprinkles make anything better. 😀
Hey Katie! I just made these, and they were absolutely delicious!! I just thought I’d let you know I ran the nutritionals while making them, and it’s more like 160 calories per bar, not 140. Not a big deal though, they’re still great! Love your posts!
Hi Kristin,
Calorie counts are never an exact science, as brands vary (as do numbers on different online calculators). They should always be treated as an estimate (even packaged nutrition labels are allowed to be up to 20% off).
I’m so glad you tried the bars. It always makes me so happy when someone tries one of the recipes with good results :).
Sprinkles make everything so much more fun! These look simply delicious 🙂
Hey Katie!!
I just wanted to let you know that I made your buttery berry crumble bars and they were delicious!! I made them in my muffin tin. They looked like cute berry cups!
I also made the berry filling again to use as jam! I used an extra teaspoon of cornstarch and reduced the maple syrup to 2T. I cooked it on the stove top and let it cool. It is delicious!!
I also made your blueberry pancakes this morning. I used coconut oil as you suggested and it was amazing!
Thank you so much!! 🙂
Aw Tiffany, thank you for trying the recipes! That always makes me so happy!
would coconut butter work in this recipe?
Sorry, I haven’t tried it. It would probably work… but you’d need to keep the bars refrigerated or frozen for best results. Let me know if you experiment… it sounds like a really good variation!
Oh this looks delicious! I am going to whip up a batch for my husband who is lamenting the loss of his not-so-good for you granola bars.
These look awesome..will have to give them a try over the weekend. I love that they can be made gluten free too:) P.S Has anyone ever told you that you resemble Anne Hathaway? Just sayin’ 🙂
I love the comment about Bobby and his sustenance Katie – Cracked me up! This whole thing sounds like something Junior would do, he’s 4 also and Loves roly polies. Bobby, indeed. Ha!
(Oh yeah, and the bars look freaking Uh-MA-ZING, I wish I had the ingredients! Hmm…. you know, I might….. I must go check!)
Katie, Just made these with peanut butter and half honey and half maple syrup (I didn’t have that much honey and I wanted to make them now!). They are delicious!!! I absolutely love your recipes and make something every week and I always love them-you are a genius!
I have been following your blog for a month now and have tried about 30 of your recipes. Typically, I follow them as closely as possible to the ingredients posted. However, this time around I just didn’t have everything on hand and I was feeling really lazy. So I took the recipe above and double all quantities. Then, instead of oat flour-I replaced with the same measurements using whole rolled oats. The only other substitution was Peanut Butter for Cashew butter. The result was delicious, it ended up developing into a Peanut Butter Rice Crispie treat. It still needs some refining on the density of the crispie treat. But the taste was yummy. Thank you so much for inspiring this! I really enjoy this blog!!!
Katie! I love your recipes!! They are so creative, original, and fun! Yummyyy! Working on my own healthy blog! 🙂
I made these last night with my 2 and 3 year old. We had a blast. (and made a mess). we used PB b/c that’s all we had in the house. And this morning they still weren’t set…hopefully, tonight we can have them.
I have to thank you so much for all of this! my girls and I have a blast making all your no bake “treats” I think we made EVERY flavor larabar/fudgy baby lthis week. I love that they can do a lot of the “cooking” and getting them involved in making healthy food is a MAJOR plus. THANK YOU!
I have never been sadder in my life at the lack of rice crispies in my cupboard. 🙁 Must go to the store on my way home from work, cause i need to make this as soon as humanly possible!
I just made these and they are spoiling yummy. I am allergic to oats so I dubbed in brown rice flour. I also dubbed in sunflower butter because I did not have cashew butter. The results were amazing. Thanks for sharing so many great recipes. I am still amazing people with my deep dish cookie pie. No one can believe that the main ingredient is garbanzo beans!
My darn phone changes words…guess I should READ it first. Lol. I meant sooooo good. And subbed not dubbed. Lol.
Rarely do I follow recipes and thought I’d give this one a whirl. Followed it exactly and while the end product was delicious it was also REALLY gooey. Anybody else have this problem??
Yes. Really sticky and also way flatter than they turned out in the pictures, and also way floppy. Like you can’t hold it without it folding in your hand. And I’m a professional baker… I followed the recipe to a T. They were REALLY really really good tasting though. I’m planning on trying again tonight. I was just going to add more oat flour and see how that turns out. :\
These look amazing! I need to try them ASAP!
Check out my latest recipe @ bakingblissful.blogspot.com