MUESLI ENERGY BARS

Muesli Energy Bars

It's very hard to get decent cereal bars in the supermarket, though Kelkin, Nak'd and Jordans do a great job with their bars and lots of places stock them. Still, they are expensive. So, frustrated in both Aldi and Tesco today with the generally rubbishy cereal bars on offer (high sugar, coated in yogurt/chocolate), I decided to make my own. I found a couple of good recipes on the RTÉ website and I have adapted one of them, basically to use what was in my press. These came out quite crumbly but are totally delicious. (They might have stayed together better if I hadn't prised them out of the tin for testing before they were cold...)

Muesli Energy Bar 

Ingredients

• 50g butter or marg.
• 50ml rapeseed oil
• 1 large egg
• 50g light brown sugar
• 150g porridge oats
• 25g mixed nuts (chopped)     
• 25g dessicated coconut
• 50g dates (chopped)
• 25g pumpkin seeds
• 25g ground almonds
• 25 g raisins
• 1 tsp vanilla essence (or any other flavour you like)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 160°C
2. Line a shallow baking tin with baking paper
3. Put butter, sugar and oil into a biggish pot, over a low heat, and stir until butter melts
4. Remove from heat and stir in all the dry ingredients
5. Whisk egg in a cup with vanilla essence and add to other ingredients
6. Spread evenly into the tin using a spatula to flatten
7. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes
8. Remove from the oven and allow to cool before cutting into bar shapes.
9. Leave until completely cold before removing from the tin.