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.

VEGAN DATE AND MUESLI SLICE

I adapted this from a Café Fresh recipe. I had to adapt it because their recipe included seeds and when I went to the press, the seed box was almost empty. So I threw in muesli, flaked almonds and a mushed up Weetabix instead. Necessity. Mother. Invention etc etc. This recipe is sugar free – so good for you!
I used a 12” x 9” oval ovenproof dish – a square one might work better for slicing.

240 g chopped dates
Juice and zest of 1 large orange
140g porridge oats
70 g muesli (try for one with seeds)
20 g flaked almonds
110g vegan margarine

o Preheat the oven to 180˚C
o Heat the dates, orange juice and zest over a low heat until soft (about 5 mins)
o Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl
o Rub in the vegan marg until it all sticks together
o Press half teh mix into the bottom of your ovenproof dish, tamp it down
o Plop blobs of the date mix onto the base at intervals and smooth down with your wooden spoon
o Put the rest of the oat/marg mix on top until the dates are covered. Tamp down.
o Bake for 25 minutes, until golden-brown.
o Cool in the dish before slicing – it may be crumbly. Who cares? Have more!