Chewy School-friendly Muesli Bars

My beloved husband believes, not without reason, that for both health and convenience reasons we need to bake snacks for our kids to take to school for recess. I'm obviously all in favour of health and convenience but I'm not entirely convinced that the chocolate banana bread or berry muffins that are our staple are really that healthy. Both are home made and therefore avoid the perils of transfats, palm oil, and oddly numbered preserving and stabilising agents, both are cheaper than buying that kind of snack food but to me they don't really seem particularly healthy. Plenty of sugar (or 'energy' as the candy bar ads so gloriously euphemise) which actually doesn't bother me that much but not high in fibre or protein, which as Megan knows, I'm a bit obsessed about

So I've been dwelling on what I can make easily, cheaply, lasts reasonably well (muffins, being lower in fat, don't last as well). It needs to have protein, fibre and be nut-free (school policy). And, obviously it needs to be whatever my fickle children consider tasty. Muesli bars (I think our North American friends call them Granola Bars) are a lunchbox staple, and I love chewy, oaty, fruity things, so that's what I decided to try.

I looked at about a hundred recipes and they tend to be variations on a theme. I asked various friends for their recommendations What I really wanted was something that gave me a ratio of wet to dry ingredients, an idea of crunchy to smooth ratios and how much fat and sugar was going to be needed to glue it all together. Oh, and I want to make sure I didn't end up with headache-inducing, rock-like crunchiness.

Based mostly on these recipes by SmittenKitchen, BakePlaySmile nd TheHealthyChef and the stuff I had kicking around in my pantry, I have constructed my own recipe and it's exactly what I was hoping for!

Dry Ingredients

• 1 cup quick oats
• 1 cup regular oats
• 1 cup corn flakes (I wanted some crunchy bits and I'm not allowed to use nuts. You could use any kind of prepared cereal, puffed grains, nuts, whatever)
• 1 - 1 1/2 cups dried fruit (I used 1 cup of diced dried apricots and 1/3 cup of diced dates)
• 1/2 cup raw sugar (I will use brown sugar for extra chewiness next time)
• 1 cup other dry ingredients. I used one third of a cup each flour, pepitas and quinoa flakes
• 2 tbsp chia seeds

Wet Ingredients

• 120g/half a cup melted butter
• 1/4 cup honey (roughly - I hate measuring honey!)
• 1 beaten egg 
• half a cup stewed apple/apple sauce (I make this myself - just cooking up a heap of peeled, cored tart green apples with a little bit of sugar, water, and lemon and a heap of delicious sweet mixed spices). Those who want to make a nutty version of this could use a nut butter here, maybe loosened with a bit of oil and people who are really serious about being healthy might prefer to use tahini.
• 2 tbsp golden syrup (because I was worried it wouldn't stick together enough)

Method

• preheat the oven to around 160C (fan-forced) and line a brownie tin with baking paper (spring for the fancy baking paper - it's worth it!) and give the lined pan a spray with cooking oil.
• Mix the dry ingredients in a largish bowl.
• Mix the wet ingredients in another bowl (I use a Pyrex measuring jug for this kind of thing - I melt the butter in the microwave with the honey and syrup then add the beaten egg, making sure it's not too hot because I don't want the egg to cook til it all goes in the oven).
• Add the wet to the dry ingredients and mix it all up well and press it into the prepared tin, flattening it down neatly.
• Cook it for about 25-35 minutes and let it cool completely before you cut it.

Store it in an airtight container - in the humid Sydney summer I'd suggest the fridge, if it isn't going to be eaten within a day or two. Although I could probably convince myself that this is an appropriate breakfast, morning tea and lunch, so that seems unlikely at this point.

Variations I'm looking forward to trying:

Tropical: with dried coconut, dried pineapple and pawpaw with golden syrup instead of honey. Maybe even mashed banana.

Thanksgiving/Autumn: Pecans, cranberries and maple syrup. Mashed cooked pumpkin with lots of spices instead of apple.

Summer: Dates and figs, dried coconut, some orange juice or even a drop or two of orange flower water.

And

Blueberry Muffins

I've never been a big fan of muffins they always seem like a mouthful of air and dry soapy crumbs - but that's because they aren't home made fresh and have too much raising agent in them. I found these in Nigella Lawson's 'How to be a Domestic Goddess' when I was looking for a quick treat to impress the other mothers at playgroup - something that doesn't have much sugar and that is quick and easy to make and easy for little hands to eat, but will also go down nicely with a coffee for the adults. These fit the bill perfectly because they aren't too full of sugar (there is a standard 5g teaspoon of sugar in each standard size muffin) but they still fall squarely within the realm of 'treat' for the little kids. The first time I made them I used mixed berries from some high antioxidant frozen berry mix that I found in the supermarket and I think they were better than this time, when I just used (thawed) frozen blueberries. When the berries thaw they ooze brightly coloured juice and some of that goes into the muffins (I try and keep most of it out) which makes the finished muffins kind of marbled with bright blue and purple, which I think is cool (and blue muffins will appeal pretty strongly to toddlers and little kids too). I'm going to continue to experiment with this recipe using different fuits.

Ingredients
75g unsalted butter, melted
200g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
75g caster sugar
pinch salt
200ml buttermilk (or 100g yoghurt and 100ml semi-skimmed milk)
1 large egg
200g blueberries

Method- Melt the butter and set it aside to cool
- Preheat to 200C
- Prepare your muffin tin with little patty cases. The recipe makes 12 normal muffins but I have been making 24 little tiny muffins (without patty cases, just with very well buttered trays) and 6 normal sized muffins. This is a pretty ideal amount for having a group of little kids and their carers around.
- Sift the flour and mix with the other dry ingredients in a mixing bowl.
- Beat together the egg, buttermilk and melted butter
- Add the wet ingredients to dry, incorporating very gently, not worrying about lumps because you want to avoid overworking the mixture.
- Gently fold in the berries then pop them in the oven. I have been putting my large muffins on the middle shelf and the small ones on a shelf underneath and they have both been perfectly ready at the same time.
- Bake for 20 minutes.
- Eat and enjoy. Nigella suggest eating them hot with butter and blueberry jam but I think that negates the virtuous 'not too much sugar' feeling.