Puffed Brown Rice Bars, Two Ways: Brown Rice Crispy Treats and Puffed Brown Rice and Sunflower Seed Bars

I had never used puffed brown rice before, but I bought two pounds of it from nuts.com while my oven was broken to make some Donna Hay no-bake recipes that use puffed brown rice as an ingredient. I tried her Brown Rice Crispy Treats and her Puffed Brown Rice and Sunflower Seed Bars, which are both super simple.

For the brown rice crispy treats, you heat honey with creamy peanut butter; and stir the liquid into a mixture of puffed brown rice, almonds, pistachios, and white chia seeds. I don't know if the puffed brown rice in Australia is substantially different, but the weight measurement in the recipe was way off for the puffed brown rice I was using. The recipe calls for 3 cups of puffed rice, which is supposed to weigh 45 grams. I measured out 3 cups of puffed rice and it weighed 180 grams. 

 

I pressed the mixture into a parchment-lined pan and put it in the fridge to set. You are supposed to dip one end of each bar in melted chocolate, but I skipped this step; the bars were a bit fragile and I was afraid that they might fall apart during the dipping process. But even without the chocolate, I thought these were quite tasty. I really liked the peanut butter flavor, and all of the different textures in the bar -- the airy, crisp puffed rice, the seedy chia, and the crunchy nuts. The bars were sort of like a cross between a cereal treat and a chewy granola bar.

For the puffed brown rice and sunflower seed bars, you heat honey, vanilla paste, coconut oil, and cashew butter; and stir in puffed brown rice (I measured out 1.25 cups, which weighed 75 grams), hazelnuts (I used cashews instead), orange zest, sunflower seeds, and white chia seeds. I pressed the mixture into a parchment-lined pan and chilled the pan until firm. These bars are also supposed to be dipped in a coating -- not chocolate, but a mixture of coconut oil melted with cashew butter. These bars were also not totally firm, so I skipped the coating step here as well.

The orange zest in the sunflower seed bars was very bright and surprisingly prominent. The cashew flavor was fairly mild; I'm glad I used whole cashews instead of hazelnuts in the bars to boost the cashew flavor in the cashew butter. These bars also had a very interesting and satisfying mix of textures, but I slightly preferred the brown rice crispy treats because I really liked more assertive peanut butter flavor. But both of these bars have all sorts of delicious things held together with honey and nut butter -- I don't think you can go wrong with either one!

Recipes: "Brown Rice Crispy Treats" and "Puffed Brown Rice and Sunflower Seed Bars" by Donna Hay.