Puptastic Crunchy Granola Bites

    If you follow me on our page, or know me personally, you know how much I love to cook and bake for my fur girls. I recently created them some puptastic crunchy granola bars. They're all natural, and so good, you will want to eat them too. (You could eat them since they're made with stuff we eat.)

Puptastic Crunchy Granola Bites 

    When I'm baking for my girls, I try to make them crunchy treats. It helps to keep their teeth clean. Bayleigh lets me brush her teeth, but Josie wants no part of it. I worry about her little teeth getting too much tartar on them, so to compensate, I try to give them crunchy treats. These are perfect. Not only do they taste amazing (yes, I ate one,) but they're super crispy too. So let's get started.

What You Need

• 3 Cups of Oats
• 1 Cup of Nuts or Granola Chunks (I used Bob's Red Mills Granola chunks because that's what I had on hand.)
• 1/4 Cup of Oil (You can use coconut or vegetable)
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 tbsp vanilla (You can omit this. I did.)
• 1 tsp Cinnamon (This is great for their breath too!)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup of Honey (We love Bee Harmony Wildflower Honey.)
• Bar Pan and Parchment Paper or Silicone Pan

Time to Get Baking! 

    Preheat your oven to 375°. In a large mixing bowl combine your OATS, OIL, and SALT. Mix well, and pour into a pan. A bar pan would be perfect, but if you don't have one, you can use a 13 x 9 cake pan. Put this into the oven to bake for about 25 minutes. However, you need to stir them every ten minutes so they bake evenly.

    Remove your oats and decrease your oven temperature to 300°.  In your large mixing bowl pour your baked oats. Then add in nuts or granola, oil, brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, salt, and honey. Mix it well. 

The Pan

    If you have a bar pan handy, line it with parchment paper, and spread your granola mixture evenly through the pan. Using a spatula, pack it down tightly. Bake it at 300°for 30-40 minutes. Check it at 30 minutes because no one wants burnt granola. 

    Once they are baked, remove the pan from the oven. Let cool about ten to fifteen minutes, then cut them. Don't wait much longer because the cooler they get, the crunchier they get! That's it! You can store these covered for about two weeks.

Don't Have a Bar Pan? No Problem!

    I gave my bar pan away a few years ago. (DOH!) But I do have this handy dandy silicone pan that has a bunch of small squares in it. I spooned my granola into the squares, and packed them tight. Bake it following the same instructions, EXCEPT ONLY BAKE FOR 15-20 MINUTES.  Remove, and let the squares cool. I put mine in the fridge for about fifteen minutes. Then I just popped the treats out. (This recipe yielded about 3 dozen Crunchy Granola Bites.) I popped two dozen in the freezer, and put the other dozen in my girls treat jar.

    They LOVE them! However, due to the brown sugar, and the added sweetness of the honey, don't over feed your pet. Just like anything, feed in moderation. I give my girls one per day. They're waiting every morning as I make my coffee. So they have a tasty treat while I nurse my eyes open with caffeine.