Healthy gluten free apple cinnamon protein bars!

Who doesn't want a quick and healthy "snack" for breakfast? I do! I'm always looking for a good gluten free protein bar recipe... one for a healthy, sugar-free (but yummy) bar I can grab in the morning to snack on while I drink my daily cup of herbal tea. 

By jove, I think I found a really good one! My husband is an avid collector of recipes he finds on the internet, and sometimes I'll try one of his recipes just out of curiosity.  

He has a (huge) 3 ring binder of recipes. I was browsing through his binder today, and saw one he printed out from a website called Anabolic Cooking. It's a website by a guy named Dave Ruel, who is quite the muscle builder (or used to be), dealing with ways to eat for building muscle mass... hubby is always looking for ways to build his muscles so he tends to save alot of high protein and muscle building recipes.

The Anabolic Cooking website promotes the cookbook Dave Ruel wrote, called The Anabolic Cooking Cookbook. I just wanted to try this one recipe for Apple & Cinnamon High Protein Muffins. It sounded pretty easy to make, had no sugar in it, and lots of other healthy things, like oats, oat bran, flax oil, protein powder, eggs and applesauce. hum.m.m.m.m sounds good don't ya think?.... plus looked quick and easy.

I'm not into muscle building(!) but would rather have a high protein, healthy snack in the morning with my first cup of tea, rather than a high carb bowl of cereal or something like that, and that's what this recipe sounded like.  So off I went to the kitchen!

So here's my take on these Apple & Cinnamon High Protein Muffins. Of course, they weren't gluten free, which is all I can eat, so I changed them up somewhat, and I made bars rather than muffins (as much easier to wash a baking dish than muffin tin - I HATE washing muffin tins for some reason!).

GLUTEN FREE HEALTHY APPLE-CINNAMON-OATMEAL-RAISIN PROTEIN BARS

Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.

If you don't have to eat gluten-free, then you could use "normal" oats and regular flour, etc.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup of gluten free oatmeal (I use Bob's Red Mill)
1/4 cup of oat bran (I didn't have any, so used some ground up gluten free rice krispies)
1 tbs. gluten free coconut flour (plus an added 1/8 of a cup as the batter seemed too thin to me)
4 eggs (it called for 6 egg whites, but I used 4 whole eggs instead)
1 scoop Vanilla Protein Powder (I used "Pure Protein" 100% Whey Protein Powder - it does contain a very small amount of sucralose, which I don't like but it's all I had)
1/4 tsp. baking soda
Dash of salt
1 tbs. organic Agave sweetener (it called for Splenda but I didn't want any artificial sugars in my bars-yuk)
1 tbs. Virgin olive oil (I added maybe another tbs. as I wanted them to be a little more moist)
2 tbs. softened butter (my own addition for moistness)
4 tbs. unsweetened apple sauce
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 peeled and diced apple
1/2 to 1 cup raisins (optional, but they do add some sweetness)
1/2 to 1 cup nuts (optional)

Directions:

1.  Blend all dry ingredients. I used a whisk. Then add wet ingredients (do not add apple pieces or raisins, nuts, etc. until everything has been blended with the mixer) and mix very well with an electric mixer. Then add apple, raisins and nuts.

2.  Add the apple pieces, raisins and nuts and mix in with a spoon.

3.  Poor batter into a buttered or oiled 9x9 baking dish.

4.  Cook for approx. 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Check with toothpick at about 25 minutes so you don't overcook.

You could make muffins if you wish. Also, I think these bars or muffins would freeze well, and then microwave one when you want a quick snack.  (NOTE TO SELF: Make a double batch next time as 2 days later, they are already gone!)

The original recipe from Dave Ruel can be found HERE.

Don't these look pretty yummy? And they WERE! Hubby and I just had to try them, right?

Perfect to have with my cup of tea in the morning.... and here's a note.. if you've never tried Stash Tea's Meyer Lemon tea, you HAVE to try it! If you love the taste of lemons, then this tea is just the most awesome lemon tea I've ever tried, and I've tried alot of them.

Well.. that's my excitement for the day...... I'm already looking forward to my tomorrow morning cup of (lemon) tea with a super healthy protein bar!

Enjoy!