White House Fruit and Oat Bars Recipe (2024)

#1) Mega sweet. As in really sweet. Seriously sweet. #2) I let cool a good hour before attempting to cut. Nope. Simply fell apart. I went ahead and spooned it into a container and stuck it into the fridge. The next day, I went to grab a piece and it was the perfect *bar* consistency. I'd like to make again and try chilling in fridge a good few hours before attempting to cut.
#3) love the ratio of seeds to fruit and oat. I used chia, sesame, poppy, and sunflower seeds.

Never use aluminum foil to line a pan. Parchment paper is the only good option in my opinion. (Also great for easy clean up when making cookies, baking salmon and roasting vegetables) These bars just came out of the oven and I immediately put them in the frig to harden. Sweet enough for my taste and ready to serve. Great recipe.

With all that dried fruit, why do you even need the brown sugar, honey, and maple syrup? If you need something to bind the ingredients with, try using date paste (in a food processor puree dates that have been softened by simmering in enough water to just cover them).

This produced a gooey mess. I followed other reviewer suggestions and put these in the fridge for a day. I was able to cut them apart but not into nice bars. There is clearly too much oil/syrup/honey as it is visible and oozy on the surface. If attempting, I’d reduce all of this by half. These have a nice flavor but appearance and texture are poor.

Given the other comments about how sweet it is, skipped the brown sugar all together. Itwas still on the sweeter end of the spectrum, but not bad. I let it cool fully, then put into the refrigerator and it set up nicely. Instead of sunflower seeds I used sliced almonds and chia seeds. The recipe lends itself to variations.

Far too sweet.

I baked these at the correct temperature for less time and the fruit on the bottom burned. There’s so much sugar!

I waited for the pan to cool before cutting, but the bars fell apart. From other bakers, I've learned I should have put in the fridge, and cut the next day. Thank you for the tip! I also thought they would be too sweet, so reduced the honey making equal amounts of honey, sugar, syrup. Still sweet. Also fruit needs to be chopped quite small. Yummy, even as granola blobs if not bars. Will make again.

Reduced all the sugars by a third, used coconut oil (a bit less), swapped out a third of the fruit for chopped pecans, and let it bake for an extra 10 minutes till the top was almost dry to the touch. Let it cool, sliced no problem. Husband loves them.

This produced a gooey mess. I followed other reviewer suggestions and put these in the fridge for a day. I was able to cut them apart but not into nice bars. There is clearly too much oil/syrup/honey as it is visible and oozy on the surface. If attempting, I’d reduce all of this by half. These have a nice flavor but appearance and texture are poor.

These have replaced store bought snack bars for me. Good to know that refrigeration helps with cutting them. I put portions into snack bags and made do.

These are very delicious. Super chewy. They could pass for breakfast bars, and would also be excellent on a hike. I used parchment paper (not foil) to line the pan and popped it directly from the oven into the refrigerator to harden. Great recipe!

Far too sweet, would not make again.

The intro to this recipe (and maybe the chef's vision) is full of misconceptions. No white sugar, it is written, but what about the brown sugar (white sugar+molasses) AND syrup AND honey ... it is all sugar. Not to mention the sugar from the dried fruit. Sugar is sugar, whatever the color or form. The added cinnamon is great, a "sweetener"... And no chocolate? There is nothing wrong with modest amounts of dark chocolate. Bill Clinton's cookies may have been less sugary.

Definitely chill in refrigerator before cutting into bars.

Worried about these being too sweet I used 1/4 cup each of brown sugar, honey, maple syrup AND pomegranate molasses (mostly because I had it from something else and thought it might be good in theses). They turned out fantastic! The pomegranate molasses gave them an awesome tanginess. I did need to refrigerate before cutting apart.

With all that dried fruit, why do you even need the brown sugar, honey, and maple syrup? If you need something to bind the ingredients with, try using date paste (in a food processor puree dates that have been softened by simmering in enough water to just cover them).

Extremely sweet. Too sweet in my opinion. As the recipe says, give them enough time to completely cool.

I doubled this and made 2 versions, which was fun, but took more time: 1) sunflower/thompson raisin, cran & 2) pumpkin seeds, flax, banana chips and dried mango. There is not enough liquid to hold the bars together. I used a 9 x 13" pan to make them thinner and they still fell apart. An overnight in the fridge helped a bit. This type of recipe does require a lot of sugar, perhaps you can raise the maple syrup quantity to hold them together. Definitely use parchment paper!