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)
Yummy sounding (and looking!). No cashew butter in the house but I do have sunflower nut butter and also almond butter. Which do you think could come closest to the taste of your recipe? My home is about two weeks away from having a Vitamix and then there can be whatever kind of fresh nut butter my little heart desires and of course, whatever type your delicious recipes are featuring that week! Thanks so much for the food love!!!
Sorry, I haven’t tried this recipe with either of those two butters. I’m sure they’d both be equally delicious, though!
I didn’t have cashew butter either! It went into too many other recipes from this AMAZING site! I used a combination of coconut butter (Artisana) and PB2, and they taste JUST like cake batter. My bet is that either one would taste great in this recipe. I suppose you could also try combining the sunflower nut butter and almond butter?
P.S. I also used gluten free rice chex because I couldn’t find rice crispies. BUT, good news, they are still amazing. 🙂
It sure does look pretty there in texas! Has it started to get really hot???
Well yesterday it got up to 110… Does that answer the question? 😉 😉
These look amazing. I definitely want mine with sprinkles!!
Oh my gosh…those look SO good!!! And the story is so adorable! I remember the days when my brother and I used to play with roly polys and daddy long legs (I can’t believe I thought they were adorable). Awesome recipe!
lol I was always afraid of Daddy Long Legs!
I didn’t want anyone to kill them, because I read a book called “Be Nice to Spiders” but still they scared me!
I don’t mind losing a bit of my face for this recipe!
Ummm WHOA totally excited about these! WILL be making them tonight! I only have pb2 in the house, so I’ll give that a try and report back! Yay fun cooking adventures!!!!! (and I was getting tired of certain other energy bars for pre-long runs, so your timing is PERFECT!) 🙂
CCK –
Rave reviews from my running buddies, so this is what I did:
Used half white baking flour (it’s what I had) and half protein powder, 3 T pb2 and 1.5 T water. Made 2 batches: one batch had regular Rice Krispies and vanilla powder (so peanut butter taste was more dominant), second batch had Cocoa Krispies and chocolate powder (so a little chocolate pb twist?). Both tasted good, although I think I prefer the peanut butter version with sprinkles on top!
Also, to get them to set up, I flattened each batch between layers of wax paper and put them in the freezer overnight. When I got up early the next morning, I cut each batch into six pieces and packaged them individually.
Next time, I might increase the flour and decrease the protein powder to get rid of some of the protein powder taste/grit, but, overall, I call it a success (and the ladies I run with all asked for the recipe, so I sent them the link to your site!)
Hey Katie – just a heads up – pictures aren’t loading in the email for your posts on gmail accounts. The meta tag shows up, but not the picture itself.
Thanks for the heads up! Annoyingly, I can’t test it because I wasn’t signed up for my emails under my gmail account (which I always forget to use). I signed up today so hopefully I can try and fix it the next time the post goes out. Thanks for letting me know!
Ok it didn’t show up for me either today. It did just what you said. So I googled and found this from gmail’s FAQ:
“When you receive an email that contains externally linked images, Gmail usually doesn’t display the images automatically. This behavior is designed to help protect your privacy; if we displayed the images automatically, it could potentially allow the sender of the email to see that the images are being fetched, and therefore know when you’ve read their message.”
It goes on, but I won’t bore you ;). In any case, there’s a button at the top of the email that says “display images.” Annoying, and I wish I could change it. But apparently it’s a gmail thing.
Oh my gosh! These look amazing!! I’m going to make these as soon as I get home from work.
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 :).