January is definitely one of those months where I feel horrible after eating everything in sight at Christmas time, but the thought of going cold turkey with everything sweet is highly depressing. So, I did what I always do when I am looking for some healthy eating inspiration and turned to my Deliciously Ella cook book to see what I could find. I have tried quite a few of her recipes now so I wanted to try a new one, and wanted something uncomplicated and that I already had all of the ingredients for. Ticking all of these boxes was her date and oat bars. These were ridiculously easy to make, are full of really good ingredients and tasted great. These oat bars are perfect as a quick breakfast or as a healthy afternoon snack.
Please don’t be put off by the title if you are not a fan of dates!! I know people either love them or hate them (I personally love them), but even if you don’t, I think you will still like this recipe. There aren’t any actual chunks of dates in the bars as they are reduced down with some coconut oil to create a date like paste which tastes just like caramel (except healthier – amazing!)
Onto the recipe…….
Ingredients
- 400g of oats
- 20 medjool dates (400g)
- 300ml of water
- 200g of raisins
- 100g of sunflower seeds (I actually used 50g of sunflower seeds and 50g of pumpkin seeds instead, but you can do as you like)
- 3 tablespoons of coconut oil
- 4 tablespoons of chia seeds with 16 tablespoons of water
- 2 teaspoons of cinnamon
This amount of ingredients is supposed to make about 20 bars of 3×1 inches big. I only used half of the ingredients as to make a smaller batch, but again, do as you like. You can store the bars in an airtight container at room temperature for about a week.
Method
Step 1: Preheat your oven to 200C
Step 2: Mix the chia seeds with the water in a small bowl or cup and leave this to sit until a gel forms (it will take about 10 minutes).
Step 3: Pit the dates and place in a saucepan with the coconut oil. Mix for a couple of minutes until the dates have almost melted and are nice and soft and gooey.
Step 4: Place the dates into a blender with the water and blend until a smooth paste forms.
Step 5: Add the rest of the ingredients (including the chia gel) to a mixing bowl and stir in the date mix.
Step 6: Line a baking tray with baking paper and pour the mixture into it. Spread it evenly across the tray. If you make the full batch, use a 6×9 inch tray, but if you make half of the batch use a smaller tray. I made the mistake of using half of the ingredients in the larger tray and my bars came out a bit thin. They would be better if they were a bit chunkier.
Step 7: Place the tray in the oven for approximately 35 minutes (or about 20 minutes if you only use half of the ingredients) until the top turns golden. Then remove the tray from the oven and leave it to cool for about 15 minutes. Once it has cooled, cut the mixture up into portion size bars. It is important to let them cool before cutting them as this will help them to set properly and not fall apart when you slice them.
That’s it for these quick and easy oat bars. I hope you enjoy the recipe if you give it a go. Be sure to let me know if you do :).
If you fancy something a bit sweeter, you can find a recipe for her sweet potato brownies here which I tried perviously, or Mary Berry’s banana loaf here.
Let me know if recipes are something that you like to see on my blog or of there are different types of blog posts you would prefer. I put a poll on my Instagram recently asking if people would prefer to see skincare and makeup blog posts or lifestyle and home blog posts. The results were very close with lifestyle and home ‘JUST’ winning by one extra vote. I guess that means that people want to see both. If you didn’t get a chance to vote on my Instagram then please feel free to leave a comment below, letting me know what kind of posts you would like to see :).
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