These horse treats are designed for maximum flavor and crunch from a minimum of human effort. Similar to granola bars, these squares are cut from a block after baking.
While it takes about 30 minutes of preparation to form the dough, most of that is oven time. Relax while the dry ingredients dehydrate in a low oven.
Crunch comes from a brief pre-bake
To minimize baking and maximize crunch, it helps to bake the oats and flour to dry them thoroughly.
Then briefly mix in your liquid sweetener of choice and press everything together.
The aroma of the baked granola bars may tempt your human friends to eat them before they reach the barn. Don’t let them!
| Prep Time | 20 minutes |
| Cook Time | 1 1/4 hour |
| Servings |
pieces
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- 2 cups Oats old fashioned
- 1 cup flaxseed meal
- 1/4 cup safflower oil or vegetable oil, or coconut oil, melted
- 1 cup Flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup molasses or honey or agave nectar, or a blend
- 1/4 cup apple juice or water
- 1 1/2 Tbsp ground cinnamon
Ingredients
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- Add the oats, flaxseed meal and flour to a bowl and stir to combine.
- Spread on a cookie sheet and bake at 325 for 15 minutes. Stir halfway through. Heat and toast very lightly, taking care not to burn
- Place heated dry mixture in a mixing bowl. Add your sweetener, cinnamon, salt, oil and water or apple juice. Stir to combine. Dough will be crumbly.
- Place parchment a rimmed cookie sheet. Use a piece of parchment about the size of a full size cookie sheet
- Pile the oat mixture into the center of the sheet. Work it into a rectangle by folding the sides of the parchment over the mixture and pressing down. Rotate the sheet 90 degrees and fold the ends over the parchment. Work the ingredients until they hold together in a rectangle about 1/2 inch thick.
- Bake the granola block for 30 minutes at 250 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Optional: If your dough was especially crumbly, you can help firm up the structure after the first 30 minutes of baking. Remove the sheet from the oven and compress the bars again with the folded parchment.
- Rotate the cookie sheet and bake for another 20-30 minutes.
- Remove the granola block from oven and let cool until cool enough to handle, about 15 minutes. Make sure the rectangle is still soft enough to cut without cracking.
- Using a sharp or serrated knife, slice the rectangle into bars and then into squares.
- To ensure your granola dries completely, cool them in the oven as it cools overnight. Arrange the squares on the cookie sheet with a little space around each one. Ensure the oven is off. The squares should be quite firm and crunchy when cool. Store your granola treats in airtight container.
- Let your horse enjoy this special treat.
The first time I made these, the granola block was about 1 inch thick and hard to cut. The second time around, I made the dough into a half-inch thick rectangle. This resulted in a block much easier to slice through, and smaller treat size I was looking for.
