These have turned into one of my favorite healthy snacks for those busy on-the-go days. The fruits and nuts are the perfect combination of a sweet treat and protein to keep one satisfied and still moving. Feel free to make up your own combinations and use the items you already have on hand. These are versatile, healthy, quick and delicious.

Note: In essence, I think you can make any sticky dried fruit and nut combination. Also this is written for a small 8×8 pan; feel free to double it for a 9×13 pan.

1 1/2 cup of Figs, Dates, Plums, or Raisins
1 cup *nuts of Almonds, Walnuts, Pecans, or Cashews
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, optional

*In a food processor, blend your chosen nuts until it resembles coarse crumbles like small pebbles, larger is better if you are concerned as they will get chopped more when you add the fruit. Remove the nuts from the food processor and set aside.

Put your chosen dried fruits in the food processor with the salt and cinnamon (if using). Run on low scraping side occasionally until a smooth paste is formed. The paste may come together in a ball as it is processing. Feel free to break this up a bit to get the mixture mostly smooth. Add the nuts back into this mixture and pulse just to incorporate.

With a slightly wet hand, firmly press the mixture in to a parchment lined 8×8 pan. Chill in the refrigerator or freezer to firm up for easy cutting.

*I think blending the nuts a little first to help break them up is good. When I did this first, the almonds did not blend as well, some were still larger chunks. I think if you are using only softer nuts like walnuts and cashews, they would blend fine and you could skip this step and just do the fruits first and add the nuts second.

This happens to all of us. You see a recipe that looks and sounds wonderful but then you go to make it, buy the ingredients, invest time and energy only for it not to turn out. There are many reasons as to why this could happen. Some recipes are truly just bad recipes; others are not written well, leaving some steps confusing to readers. Other recipes may have measurement issues or there could be a user error and you may misread or improperly measured something. Whatever it is, don’t let this stop you from cooking!

This recently happened to a friend of mine. She reached out to me for help. She shared this recipe for Raw Vegan Almond Fig Bars saying she made it but hers was a soggy mess and did not work out at all. I took a look at the recipe and even at first glance I could see several places that could lead to confusion or misinterpretation. When a recipe seems vague in descriptions or does not provide exact measurements, especially for baked items, it is a red flag for a potential error. After working through the original recipe myself, I updated it to be more precise. However, I still had a problem with this particular recipe. For me when I want a snack, I want it now and don’t want to wait for 2-4 hours for an ingredient to be prepared. It also seemed way too long and labor-intensive for what was actually needed to produce a tasty result. I got to work making a new simpler yet same great flavor recipe.

Take a look at the recipe below; my adjusted comments are in green. These are things to look for when trying out new recipes as they may lead to potential pitfalls. With my new notes in green, the original recipe should work out better but if you are looking for a simpler healthy snack without all the steps try my new version. My revised Fruit and Nut Bar Recipe is also on my blog. It is a healthy no-bake snack that is perfect for those busy on-the-go days.

(original recipe on the left, my revised recipe on the right)

Raw Vegan Almond Fig Bars

(Original recipe is below; my revised comments are in green)

This recipe is : raw vegan

Serves: 9 big bars

Ingredients

For the crust

1 cup walnuts
1 cup almonds
1 heaping cup raisins (“heaping” is not a measurement. Your heaping, my heaping and her heaping could all be very different measurements)
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

For the filling

2 cups dried figs, soaked in water for 2-4 hours (keep the water!) (The first area for confusion are these figs dried as in still soft or dehydrated as in they have no moisture in them and must be re-hydrated. I used dried figs from Costco actually. They were not fresh fruits but dried and still soft on the inside. This softness is crucial because if you use these you can cut out this ridiculous 2-4 hour step. I don’t know about you, but when I want to make a snack I don’t want to wait 2-4 hours to do so.)
1-2 tablespoons maple syrup (optional) (This is totally optional: figs are already really sweet)
1/4 teaspoon salt

For the topping

1 1/2 cups pecans

Preparation

To make the crust: process the nuts in your food processor until you get really fine pieces – like flour. Alternately you could use oat flour here. Add the raisins and cinnamon. If it’s not sticky enough, add some dates or maple syrup. (“if not sticky enough” really does not help, how are you to know how sticky it should be. I bet most people would add extra fruit or syrup because the mixture is really not that “sticky” at all. The mixture will still be crumbly but should stick together when pressed with your fingers with 1 1/4 raisins. I used 1 tablespoon extra syrup for good consistency”) Press into a 9X9 pan or shape it yourself on parchment paper, that’s what I did.
To make the filling: blend the figs, maple syrup/agave and salt in the food processor (no need to wash it yet), adding the soak water as needed to make it smooth but still quite thick. (Again how much water? Even an approximate amount would help.) Spread this on the crust but keep a little less than 1/4 cup of it in the food processor… (see my note on dried vs. dehydrated figs. I used dried figs, 1 tablespoon syrup and 1 tablespoon water. Blend this to make a smooth sticky paste.)
To make the topping: add the pecans to the food processor (with the leftover fig mixture) and pulse until there are small nut chunks, but not too fine. Sprinkle this on top of the fig filling and press down a little. Cut and enjoy! (they will cut best if chilled first) I sliced the sides off mine to make it a nice square so I had these extra strips of fig bar… I made fig nut milk! Just blend it with water.

So with that said, you can save yourself so much time and take out 3 of these steps while still achieving a very similar result. The way I see it, there is no need for the 3 layers unless you just like time consuming recipes. Everything gets pressed together anyways so lets make it easy.

fruit and nut bars

Simple Fruit and Nut Bars