Honey and Dried Fruit Muesli Bars

It’s been a long time. A really, really long time. I must admit to a certain lack of baking inspiration – when I feel the need for baking goodness, I’ve stuck to quick, proven recipes rather than experimenting (Salted Caramel Bars, anyone? Om nom). And the last few weekends have been somewhat hectic – and the weeks hence are about to get crazier with a six week teaching practice. I cease to function on a level that is not required for school when on practice, so if you see a post, be amazed. Be very amazed. Because something magical will have occurred.

Anyway, today’s bakingy goodness is probably not something I’d actually eat. Because it has dried fruit in it, and its slight healthiness might taint me and my world will come to a crashing halt. But my mother requested baking goods to take with her on her weekend away, and she seems to like these muesli-bar-fruit things. But I’ll admit they are kind of fun to make – all that chopping and mixing together. Just making it makes me feel all alternative and healthy, even though I don’t at all intend to follow through with the good intention it inspires.

Honey and Dried Fruit Muesli Bars

Ingredients

200 g finely diced dried fruit and nuts
210 g honey
200 g rice oil
260 g oats
80 g desiccated coconut
40 g sugar
60 g almond meal
1 tsp cinnamon
2 pinches of salt 

Method

1. Spend for goddamn ever chopping up fruit and nuts. I used cranberries, goji berries, mango, apricots, walnuts, pecans and peanuts. I decided to reconstitute the goji berries quickly, because they were quite hard.



2. Measure the liquids (honey – because it’s easier to manipulate when warm – and rice oil) in grams... weird, right?



3. The easy part! Measure the rest of the ingredients out and biff them into the bowl and mix it until all is combined.



4. It looks pretty! And the thief says it tastes nice.



5. Press it firmly into a large plan and fling it into a oven preheated to 160 degrees celsius for thirty minutes, or until nicely golden.



6. Take it out when it is nicely golden and let it cool. Once it is cool you can hack it into smaller peices and store it in an airtight container. Because most of the ingredients were already dried, it should keep for a fairly long time.



My father just told me I was not allowed to give this away to anybody because it was too good, which means he wants to hoard it for himself. I guess I’ll have to make him some more as it’ll be good for him to take a piece when he goes off doing... well. I’m not sure what. He seems to just vanish for the day, and not necessarily accomplish anything. But it certainly tires him out, and something like this would be good, because it’s full of energy-stuff.

So I guess they were a success? I had heaps of fun making these at least! And the bits without fruit in them taste good. Maybe I’ll make a non-fruit version? Ooooh. That sounds like yum.