Good husbands have a busy life. They work hard all day, they bathe the children in the evening, they selflessly taste huge volumes of sweet baked goods and then, just for good measure, they get up in the night to feed the baby. And as if that weren’t enough, in the morning they let their wife sleep in as late as possible and thus forgo their own breakfast. Lucky? Me? You bet.
The least lucky old me can do is produce some form of portable breakfast snack for my good husband to take to work with him. I’m going to be honest with you… these bars aren’t the kind of treat you promise to your toddler as pudding. If you did that you might get something plastic thrown at you. What I mean is, they’re pretty good for you and they taste that way too. Mr B likes them though. And that’s what counts.
NB: These are not oaty breakfast bars, they’re not flapjacks, they’re kind of cakey in texture and crunchy on the top.
Ingredients:
- 100g butter
- 3 tbsp honey
- 100g brown sugar
- 200g Ready Brek
- 100g sesame seeds
- 50g desiccated coconut
- 100g raisins
- 2 tbsp apple juice
- 2 ripe, mashed bananas (large or if you only have small ones then add another for good measure)
- 100g milk chocolate broken into smallish pieces
Find a tray and line it. The one I used was about 30cm x 20cm but really, you can use any size. Just depends on how thick you like your bars. Don’t forget to preheat your oven to Gas 3.
Take the butter, honey and sugar and put into a large saucepan. Heat on a medium heat until everything has melted and looks syrupy. Take off the heat and add all the other ingredients except for the chocolate. Using a wooden spoon mix the ‘dough’ together. Lastly add the chocolate bits. (If you add them any earlier they melt into the mix and you don’t get that satisfying discovery of a whole piece of chocolate half way through a bite.) Pop in the oven on the middle shelf for about 45 mins until the edges are starting to brown. Usual routine of scoring whilst warm and then leave to cool on a wire rack. Cut into squares once completely cool.
You can adapt this recipe and substitute any dried fruits, nuts etc. Bit of a storecupboard sweep recipe.
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