LARABARS: Flavor Review and Homemade Recipes

I had received a sample of a Larabar in my July Birchbox. It was a small uber bar in "bananas foster". I brought it to school with me as a snack before my final and ......yuck! The flavor was gross. I was so disappointed because I love bananas foster and I had heard great things about Larabars. After I gave my review a friend told me how much she loves these bars and to not give up just because I got one bad flavor. She suggested that I get individual bars to try as the boxes are pretty expensive if you get one that you don't like. I went to the store and came home with one uber bar in apple turnover and then regular bars in blueberry muffin, chocolate chip cherry torte, lemon bar, peanut butter and jelly, cashew cookie, peanut butter cookie and chocolate chip cookie dough.

I have been trying to transition into more healthy alternatives to take with me to my evening classes and to the hospital when I volunteer so I am not eating junk. The brand boasts these bars are "simple. pure. delicious." so I figured I would give them a try. Here is what I found......

I started off with the Lemon Bar.  After I completed this "3 day diet", this was the first thing I ate. It was my breakfast and I paired it with a Starbucks Skinny Caramel Latte. I was surprised to see that just this one bar is 220 calories! Yikes! That's normally what my entire breakfast caloric intake is. There is all of 5 ingredients in this bar (dates, cashews, almonds, lemon and lemon flavor)  and it was definitely delicious. The lemon flavor was present but it was not overwhelming or overly tangy or tart. The texture was nice, but hard to explain. It is dense, like the nuts have been mixed in with a date paste, and the bar is not hard but more chewy. It did pretty well being thrown in my purse before I ran out the door that morning.

Next up I packed the Peanut Butter and Jelly bar......Oh. My. God. It tastes just like a PB&J! A whopping 4 ingredients in this bar (dates, peanuts, unsweetened cherries, and sea salt) was turned into my dinner, or dessert, however you want to look at it. Again, the bar is chewy and dense but if you enjoy it in small bites like I did then it will last at least through your class break LOL. With 210 calories for this bar, again I will need to do some shuffling of calories to get this into my diet....or miss a snack during the day. I will definitely be buying a box of these though. Less messy (and possibly less calories) than packing a PB&J for class.

I was heading to the hospital to volunteer and was starving so I grabbed a Blueberry Muffin and tossed it into my purse. It went from my purse to my pocket, from my pocket to the counter, from the counter back into my pocket, and finally into my mouth......this bar was a bit smashed up when I got to it. It is not as dense as the first 2 bars I tried and there are 190 calories in the bar. Now we are heading in the right calorie direction! I love blueberries, so this is a no brainer for me :) The bar was definitely sweet blueberry and not tart. The 6 ingredients (dates, cashews, blueberries, blueberry and lemon juice concentrate, and vanilla extract) are packed with antioxidants and I think this would go wonderfully in the morning with my cup of coffee. Definite buy for me.

My Wednesday Statistics class was vastly improved when we took our break and I enjoyed my Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough bar. At 8:30 at night, when being lectured to about the driest subject I can imagine and being freaking starving because I had dinner at 5:00, this was perfect. It was like dessert! With only 4 ingredients  (cashews, dates, 4-ingredient chocolate chips that melt in your mouth, sea salt) I really did think that I was eating cookie dough....and I didn't have the guilt!

Well, I next encountered a bar I did not like. It was during the next nights class, Modern Art Appreciation, and I took out a Chocolate Coconut Chew bar......yuck. These 5 ingredients (dates, almonds, walnuts, cocoa powder, and coconut) together was just gross. I got down about 3 small bites and over half the bar went in the trash. Four bars out of six that have been tried....not so bad I guess.

I grabbed the Uber Apple Turnover bar when I went to my statistics class the next week and was not really impressed with this bar either. The texture was good, but it had raisins and I am not a huge fan. I thought they would kind of be masked because of the dates, but they were not and I did not finish the bar. With walnuts, dried apples, brown sugar syrup, raisins, dates,  pecans, honey and sea salt, this bar has had the most ingredients of any I have tried so far. I do not think I will be getting this one again.

Again for statistics (I am sensing my Larabar trend), I grabbed a Cashew Cookie bar, and it was really tasty. The texture was right, it was not too sweet and it was a bit salty...and only 2 ingredients! Cashews and dates! It came in at a whopping 230 calories for just one bar though, so this one will be kept for days when I am using this bar for dinner.

Lastly I tried the Chocolate Chip Cherry Torte, which the show Unwrapped claims is Larabar's most popular flavor. It was not my favorite flavor, but it was not bad! In a pinch I would enjoy this bar simply because I could feel and taste the pieces of chocolate in it. The dates, chocolate chips, almonds, dried cherries, cashews and sea salt had a nice texture.

I also found the Pecan Pie bar at my grocery store! I will have to double check to see if they have the Ginger Snap bar as well.

In order to try the Key Lime Pie bar, Carrot Cake bar  and some others I wanted, I had to go to Larabar.com and I ordered the beginner's box. This way if I really love any of them I can just order large boxes off the website. There is also the chocolate bar line, Jocalat, however there is no beginners box for the 4 flavors of that bar so I will have to hunt them down in stores since on the website they do not sell individual bars.

I also looked up "how long do Larabars last?" and the response was they last for a few months, but if you know you can not get to them that quickly you can freeze the and they will keep very well. I think this is an awesome idea since I am the only one in the house that will eat them and I will be ordering them in bulk.

If you can not get Larabars at a store near you and you don't want to pay for them to be shipped to you (I am not judging you!) then there are several places online where you can find recipes for homemade bars. I mean, we are talking about just a few ingredients and smashing them all together so it can't end up in a disaster.....right? This may be a future blog......  Here is a recipe for Homemade Larabars that looks pretty basic and yummy and includes chocolate pieces and natural peanut butter. Here are several another recipes from LivingCrunchy.com that sound really delicious! One has cherries, almonds, cinnamon and vanilla, another with pineapple, coconut, and lemon zest.....and they even have a recipe for the Blueberry Muffin bar! I see these being my Christmas presents to family this year :)

I may update this when I try the other bars I ordered and do a separate post for the homemade bars I try! Keep your eye out :)

Jenn