Sunday 18 October 2015

How To: Vegan Snack Bars

Okay so this recipe is super quick and easy and for the main flavour the ingredients can be interchangeable so you can use your wildest imagination and use any types of ingredients to create whatever flavours get your taste buds tingling! For this blog post I have used orange infused cranberries, orange zest and a splash of orange juice to get a rich flavour of the amazing combination of cranberries and orange, however I have made it before with Medjool dates which are just as tasty if you’re a date lover like myself. This recipe makes around 12 small bars or 9 bigger ones, as you can see to the left, it just depends on how you cut it after it has cooled!

All the ingredients you’re going to need for this recipe are as follows:
-5 tablespoons of almond butter (I prefer smooth but if you want an extra crunch go for crunchy)
-8 tablespoons of agave syrup however if you don’t like things too sweet I would say 6-7 are fine too.
-4 tablespoons of raw demerara sugar
-50 grams of soya margarine (I use Pure’s sunflower version for cooking)
-150 grams of rolled oats (I think the smaller oats you can get the better)
-2 tablespoons of rice flour
-150 grams of orange infused cranberries
-however much orange zest you desire, I use about half an orange’s worth
-splash of orange juice
The oats, cranberries, 
orange and rice flour.
For the toppings you will need:
-110 grams of raspberries (or as many as you prefer)
-30 grams of walnuts, chopped (recommended but I love them so I cover the top in walnuts haha unfortunately for this time of making them we only had a small amount left in the bag, sad times.)



That’s it! Let’s start the prep process, it takes around 10 minutes depending on how much you dally. It’s fair to say I’m a dallier.

Step 1: Measure out the almond butter, agave syrup, margarine and the sugar into a saucepan. Add a splash of orange juice. Leave this for now.

Step 2: Measure out the oats, flour, cranberries and orange zest into a bowl.

Step 3: Heat the mixture in the sauce pan on a very low setting and stir until it has all melted.

Step 4: Add the bowl of ingredients to the saucepan and mix well until all the ingredients have combined to have a sticky texture.


Step 5: Transfer the mix onto a lightly oiled shallow baking tray. Use an 18 x 28 cm (7 x 11 in) tray however mine is slightly bigger so I only used around ¾ of the space. Whatever size your baking tray is just spread the mixture until you reach your desired thickness. Level the mixture with a dampened metal spoon and have some water nearby to keep dipping it in. Don’t worry if your mixture is slightly watery at the edge it will dry in the oven.

Step 6: Once you have spread the mixture to your desired size make small indents and put the raspberries wherever you want. I opted for straight lines but you could arrange them however you wish. Then scatter as little or as many walnuts as you chopped evenly over the mix.

Step 7: It is now ready to go into the oven! I have a fan oven so I set mine to 170°C, (355 °F) if you don’t set it to 190°C (375°F), or gas mark 5 for 15 mins or until the edges are golden brown,

Step 8: Take the mixture out of the oven and leave it for 10 minutes. Then score where you are going to cut the bars. Then allow the mixture to cool before completely cutting the bars and voila you have 12ish vegan bars that are great combined with lunch, a treat after dinner or just when you’re feeling peckish and want a quick snack!



I hope you make this recipe and thoroughly enjoy them just as much as I do. If you do swap ingredients around such as peanut butter instead of almond butter and other food like banana and raisin as the main ingredients I would love to know (and see pictures!) of how they turned out, let your imaginations run wild!

See you next week

No comments:

Post a Comment