Homemade Cherry Pie “Larabars”

October 1, 2012 by Jen | 17 Comments

Like many other families, we love the flavors of Larabars but find the price tag of $1.50 per 1.8oz bar to be too high, so I decided to try making homemade Cherry Pie Larabars. There are lots of recipes out there on the internet for homemade versions of these popular snacks and they are all super simple. I studied a handful of recipes and decided to wing it with the ingredients available in my pantry. I happened to have dried cherries, dates and walnuts so my flavor choice was clear – Cherry Pie! I buy dates, nuts and dried fruits at Costco so my cost per bar is dramatically lower than the store bought bars and my children LOVED my homemade version. This recipe is amazingly simple and infinitely variable according to what dried fruits and nuts you have on hand. I read the ingredient lists for all of the Larabar flavors on their website and I feel confident that I can re-create just about any of their flavors now that I have seen for myself how easy the process is.

Yield: approx 7 1.8oz bars

Homemade Cherry Pie “Larabars”

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups pitted dates
1 1/2 cups dried cherries
1 1/2 cups walnuts

Instructions

Measure out the dates, cherries and walnuts.

Pulse the nuts in your food processor until well chopped with some bigger chunks remaining.
Pour nuts out into the bowl of your stand mixer, or any large bowl.
Process dates and cherries in your processor until a dense, sticky paste forms.

Add date and cherry paste to the nuts and mix with your stand mixer or by hand until all of the nuts are evenly distributed throughout the paste.

Move the mixture to a small baking dish.

Use a wet spatula to pack down the mixture evenly into the dish. Then move the dish into the refrigerator for a couple of hours so the bars can firm up.

When the mixture has firmed up, cut it into small bars to serve as snacks or add to lunchboxes. You can store the bars in a container with a tight lid in the refrigerator for up to a week (if they last that long!)