These are tasty and filling, they have a low GI and a high
protein and fibre content, and at a pinch could even be used as a replacement
for breakfast. The classic fruit-and-nut
combinations (peanut and raisin, date and walnut and so on) are classics for a
reason, so try one of those for your flavour theme, or just use whatever you’ve
got and take pot luck – it’ll probably be fine.
My current batch contains chopped dried apricots, dried cranberries and
chopped walnuts.
This is another of those “never quite the same” recipes that
I bash together really quickly. The
results are therefore a bit variable. I’ve
come to realise over the years that an awful lot of my cooking is done like
this; no exact quantities, casual substitution of one ingredient for another,
and so on. I’m winging it a lot of the
time, even when I cook for guests. It
works, so I keep on doing it, and I suppose once you have the confidence to
start playing it by ear like that, you can only get better at it. Certainly worth giving it a whirl.
Because, honestly, cooking isn’t rocket science, or chemistry,
or alchemy. If your variations and
substitutions are sensible and you keep to more-or-less the right proportions,
you’ll almost certainly end up with something perfectly edible. Be prepared to have a go and see what
happens.
What do I mean by “sensible” in this context? Come on, take a guess. Make sure there’s enough of the raising agent
in proportion to the dry mix when baking, know what different spices and herbs
taste like and which ones can be swapped, don’t substitute smoked salmon for raisins
or coffee for grated cheese unless you are prepared to eat something that may
taste very peculiar indeed…
Your quiche recipe specifies Emmenthal cheese but you don’t
have any? Yes, you can still make the
quiche. Use another cheese – almost any
other with a strong flavour. You’re
about to make muffins and realise you only have one egg and no milk? Try making a much stiffer mixture, spooning
out on a greased and lined baking sheet and baking it as cookies instead. They may not be tremendous but they’ll almost
certainly be perfectly edible.
Anyway, back to the Muesli cake bars.
1 ½ cups porridge oats or gf oatmeal
1 ½ cups No 1 Baking mix or No 2 Baking mix
½ cup desiccated coconut
½ cup chopped dried fruit of one kind or another
½ cup chopped nuts
¼ cup mixed seeds such as pumpkin and sunflower
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 large over-ripe banana, mashed
2 tsp xylitol (optional – and I’d leave it out these
days. If the banana is really ripe that
will give quite a lot of sweetness)
2 eggs
2 tblsp veg oil or 2 oz/50g melted butter or margarine
½ tsp vanilla essence
Milk to mix
Put all the dry ingredients in a bowl and stir
together. Mix the wet ingredients
together and stir into the dry; add a little milk if necessary to get a soft
but dense mixture. It should be
distinctly stiffer than an average cake mix, more like the mix for flapjacks
(which these are a protein-rich cousin to).
Spread in a lined baking tin about 8” square and smooth down; mark into
bars by cutting most of the way through.
Bake for 35-40 minutes at 150 degrees C in a fan oven, until golden on
top. Remove and cool, and break down the
marked divisions.
