Trying Perfect Bar Recipes to find the best one

The Perfect Bar. Cookie dough texture, delivious peanut butter taste, the ALPHA of protein bars in my humble opinion. Pairs wonderfully with an iced latte.

But as all protein bars, expensive. Even when you buy them from costco.

So I set out on an odyssey, a quest, a hero's journey to find the best, closest copycat recipe. I chose 3 from Pinterest that looked popular, as well as one from Youtube.

I made these bars in the same day, and tested them with my husband after refridgerating them overnight.

We compared the taste, as well as the nutritional facts and rated these recipes in the following way.

#4 Momma Fit Lyndsey

This was by far the worst one. To be fair, she does say use vanilla protein powder BUT that you can use a collagen one. Vital Proteins has stopped supplying scoops with their powder, which made it confusing when her recipe called for "2 scoops protein powder"

I did my best.

Ingredients I used for the Momma Fit recipe

This recipe was very oily. And when tasting it side by side with a perfect bar, they tasted not at all alike. Not like sisters, more like 3rd cousins once removed. Not bad tasting altogether, but NOT a perfect bar taste.

And the calories were in kilocalories which just irritated me. I mean, this is America people.

So for the reasons mentioned above, this was ranked last.

#3 Erin Lives Whole

Now I have no problem with Erin or the fact that she is living a whole and not a 3/4 life, however, these bars were SWEET. A lotta lotta honey and much sweeter than a perfect bar.

Ingredients I used to make Erin Lives Whole Perfect Bars.

https://www.mommafitlyndsey.com/perfect-bar-recipe/

It would be easy to adjust the honey factor and level down the sweetness, however the nutrition facts aren't even close to a Perfect bar.

The one thing this bar had going for it was the firmness, it didn't wilt as soon as you took it out of the fridge.

https://www.erinliveswhole.com/copycat-homemade-perfect-bars/

This recipe did call for Vanilla protein powder and I did not follow that direction, but seeing how far off the nutrition is, I can with a completely clean conscience say this one ranks #3.

#2 Mama Did It

So I am slightly biased here because I doubled her nutrition facts when I saw the size of the bars in her blog. Its easy to see they are cut into half the size of a perfect bar. I stand by my decision because these were pretty good, and almost EXACTLY the same nutrition as a Perfect Bar.

The only recipe with no protein powder

When taste testing, we had to go back and forth between this one and the winning recipes a few times. The final decision was made based on the fact that this one had a bit of a chalky taste, probably form the high amount of milk powder. Otherwise it tasted good and nutritionally matched up great.

https://mamadidit.com/copycat-homemade-perfect-bar-recipe/

I did like this recipe, and if I made it again I would use a different brand of milk powder to see if that helped with the chalk factor.

and that of course, brings us to the WINNER

#1 Oven Blooms

This one was the best tasting. Slightly richer than a Perfect Bar, definetly wiltier than a perfect bar, but delicious.

I left one in my car last week for about an hour and realized that even when in its melted form, it tastes like a recees peanut butter cup. The best candy ever. But still has the nutrition facts of a protein bar. love love love

I will definetly be making this recipe again.

I will say, it is not EXACTLY a PERFECT BAR. It is close, maybe a sister or an aunt of the actual thing. It does not hold its form as well and basically wilts as soon as you take it out of the fridge. It has a slight different taste.

So if you love absolutely every single nuance or the Perfect Bar, this may not be good enough for you. Its like when people act like Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi are the same, they ARE CERTAINLY NOT.

Im not going to lie to you and tell you it is the same thing. Because the nutrition facts on a Perfect Bar are extensive. There is a lot more than just peanut butter and protein powder in those things. So it is actually a herculean task to try to recreate this masterpiece in an ordinary kitchen with a slightly less than average iQ.

Perfect Bar compared to Ovenblooms bar. Perfect bar is on top.

*deep breath*e

*deep breath*

What I realized in my quest was that these perfect bar inventors are genius, they have a lot of people paying outrageous prices because its a good solid product.

My conclusion is this: If you are a die hard Perfect bar fan, just keep buying them.

However, if you want a bar that has similar nutrition to a Perfect bar and tastes like a recees peanut butter cup, by all means, give these a shot.

Here is the winning recipe:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=njcIvmVQBN0&si=k-xZr9459XIsOF8Y