Swag Bars are based on a peanut butter bar cookie served at The Swag Inn, a country inn in Waynesville, NC known for its beautiful hiking trails. The recipe appears in the current issue of Cooking Light where there’s kind of a cute story about how the cookie got discovered. I’ll let you buy the magazine for the story, but I just have to share the recipe.
Slightly "Healthier" Scotheroos
These rich, no-bake cookie bars remind me of Scotcheroos, but with less sugar and (as Cooking Light says) a better nutritional profile. CL reduces some of the sugary ingredients, cuts down the chocolate, uses a healthy vitamin fortified cereal and increases the peanuts so that the bars have a slightly crunch plus the heart healthy benefits of peanuts.
Reducing Sugar
I know a lot of people will want to cut the sugar even more, so if you do, let me know. It will probably change the great texture, but I still think it could be done. Using a reduced calorie corn syrup (or possibly Wholesome Yum allulose honey???) might work, and there’s always the option of using reduced fat and/or reduced sugar peanut butter. And for those who don’t care so much about calories but don’t like corn syrup, I am sure Golden Syrup would work too.
…..or you could just follow Cooking Light’s recipe and enjoy a small bar. I actually like Cooking Light’s version better than regular Scotcheroos. The bars have more flavor and are less sugary tasting.
Best Type Peanut Butter
Final note. I used Smart Balance Omega 3 peanut butter which isn’t very sweet. If you use something like regular Jif, your bars will be a little sweeter. But the Smart Balance worked well and I think Natural Skippy or the new (just saw it yesterday!) Natural Jif would be good. In short, use whatever peanut butter you have.
Recipe
Swag Bars aka Peanut Butter Bars
Ingredients
- 1-¾ cups creamy peanut butter
- ¾ cup sugar (150 grams)
- ½ cup light corn syrup (160 grams)
- ¼ cup honey (80 grams)
- 1-½ cups 6 oz. chopped lightly salted, dry-roasted peanuts (170 grams)
- 3-½ cups Bran Flakes or another flake type cereal, crushed (measure, then crush) (130 grams)
- ⅓ cup 2 oz. chopped dark chocolate
Instructions
- Line a 9×13-inch baking pan with foil and spray or lightly grease. Alternatively use parchment.
- Combine peanut butter, sugar, corn syrup, and honey in a heavy saucepan. Place over medium-high heat and cook 4 minutes or just until mixture begins to boil, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Stir in peanuts and cereal. Spread mixture evenly into prepared baking pan.
- Melt the dark chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl at 50% power for 1 minute or until chocolate melts, stirring every 15 seconds. Drizzle chocolate evenly over peanut mixture. Let cool, then if you have time, chill slightly for easy lifting.
- Remove from pan and cut into bars.
Anna says
Marilynn, that's a great question! I always measure my peanut butter with a scale. It's accurate and you don't have to worry about using a measuring cup. What I do is set the mixing bowl on the scale, set the tare to zero and use 130 grams or about 4 1/2 oz of peanut butter for every half cup called for in the recipe. That being said, this is a case where eyeballing 15 oz should be fine.
marilynn carroll says
Do you measure out the peanut butter into 1 cup and 3/4 cup measures?
or can you eye-ball a 15 ounce container and that works....
janet says
I made these today and they are very good. Were they supposed to be chewy like caramel? I did use the Wheaties and weighed them rather than measured cups so maybe that's why mine don't look like yours? It was very easy and thanks for the recipe!
Anna says
Lisa, I think the bars would still be really good. You might want to add a little extra cereal to make up for the lost nuts.
Lisa CC says
What do you guys think if I don't like peanuts but they sound good otherwise... could I just take them out? Or maybe use less and i would be okay with it...
Anna says
Hi Terri,
Well, maybe I was hallucinating but I could have sworn it was Jif with a big label saying "Jif Natural" or "Natural Jif"....and I remember thinking "Skippy Natural better watch out!". But we were in a hurry to leave Target and I didn't buy a jar. I figured I could get it at H.E.B. later.
Later, I went to H.E.B. and they had Simply Jif, which I noted had a completely different label than the Jif Natural.
Maybe they are test marketing it. That, or I'm going crazy.
Terri says
Hey Anna - Is the Jif you mentioned in this post called "Simply Jif"? Or is there a newer Jif that is more natural? I can't find it on their website and my curiosity is piqued! Thanks!
Kristen says
These look like just the right balance between sweet and salty, which just happens to be what I've been craving lately 🙂
Katrina says
I agree, agave is stinkin' expensive here, too. No TJ's anywhere around these parts.
Anna, just made the agave WF oatmeal cookies you made last week. Still baking. I'll let you know.
Anna says
I think agave might work, but am on the fence about using it in this recipe. I love it, but wish it wasn't so expensive :(. Someone mentioned that Trader Joe's had it for $3.99, but we don't have a Trader Joe's here in Austin. We're still paying around $7.00.
Katrina says
Sara,
Lori at Recipe Girl just posted some "bars" and she didn't have enough corn syrup for them and used some agave and it worked great. I'll bet you could sub some or even most (all?) of the corn syrup and try agave and/or golden. Just my opinion.
Anna says
Hi Sara,
Thanks for pointing me toward the Coffee Crunch Bars. I think I have everything I need to make those today and might. It's a toss-up between Coffee Crunch cookies and an variation on a crinkle cookie someone recommended on the crinkle cookie post.
About the corn syrup, I don't think the bars would be as chewy or hold together well if you reduced it. But if you use a less sweet peanut butter, the bars won't be too sweet.
Sara says
These look yummy and I like the idea of subbing golden syrup for some of the scary amount of corn syrup...do you think you could reduce the amount of corn syrup or is it all necessary to hold the bars together?
On another note, have you tried to Coffee Crunch Bars from the recent issue of Bon Appetite? They look really easy and delicious but the baking instructions are a bit different.
Anna says
I think Wheaties would be great! I bought Total because I like the idea of getting a few extra vitamins, but I think that's just a psycological thing. Wheaties should be perfect in terms of taste and texture.
Dani says
great job - they look delicious!
sharon says
I bookmarked that recipe in CL and have been curious about their test. Thanks for testing it out - they look delicious!
janet says
Anna: Do you think Wheaties would work in this one? They look very good...thank you!
Rina says
Thanks for the heads up on the natural Jif - I can't wait to try it (big fan of Skippy Natural)!
Katrina says
A healthy treat! 🙂 Just what I like!
They look great!
Anna says
I had to pay $4.00 for the Total.
bakingblonde says
The name just doesn't do it for me, not sure why. They do look and sound yummy though!
Maria says
Nice to see a good review. Total was on sale this week for $2 so I figured it was worth the splurge to try out the recipe. Course I haven't gotten around to making them yet ...
Sue says
Yours look and sound very tasty. Someone at My Recipes didn't give them a very nice review. I'm glad to know that you liked them.
VeggieGirl says
Love the "health benefits" of peanuts bit, haha - you rock 😀
snooky doodle says
such a nice treat !!