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Strawberry, Banana & Oat Snack Bars - Testing Pinterest Recipies


I'm constantly adding to my shopping basket snack bars that are probably just as bad as buying a 4 pack of dairy milk caramels. 

I'm always looking for alternatives to make myself so i know exactly what is going into them, so just a like, i know what's going into my body.

I came across these strawberry, banana oatty snack bars from the blog called Running with Spoons whose author is called Amanda. 
I found this recipe on Pinterest from Amanda and couldn't wait to give a try. 

Ingredients:

Strawberry Jam

2 cups of Frozen Strawberries
(mine were from Aldi)

2 Tbsp of Maple Syrup

2 Tbsp of Chia Seeds
(mine were slightly out of date)

1 Tsp of Vanilla Extract
(mine was madagascan vanilla)

Banana Oat Bars

2 cups of Rolled Oats 

1 Tsp of Baking Powder

2 Medium Sized Bananas 

1/4 cup of Maple Syrup

1 Tsp of Vanilla Extract



Method & How I Found It


The Strawberry Jam

 i popped the strawbs into a saucepan along with the maple syrup and heated for around 10 mins until they began to reduce their liquid, nom.

I brought the strawberries to the boil & once they started to look like a thick syrup, i began to grab my squishing utensil (we yet own a potato masher, so a draining pasta spoon had to do) & started to mash the strawberries a little.

I sprinkled in the chia seeds and eyed the vanilla extract & popped the jam into a bowl, then in the fridge to cool.

Preparation

Oven pre-heating away at 190 degrees (fan) and greased my 20x20 square dish with coconut oil, you can use baking parchment too. 


 I soon realised i needed to somehow improvise and make some oat flour. 

One cup of the oats needs to be in flour form, the other in normal rolled oat form.
Out comes the pestle and mortar and i begin to grind up my oats like old fashioned times due to a lost attachment on my food processor. 

The Snack Bars

I add the oat flour and rolled oats to a bowl, along with the baking powder and gave a quick stir. I then mashed my bananas and added those to the bowl, as well as the maple syrup and vanilla extract.
I mixed this up into i what i was hoping to become a dough like form as Amanda stated in her recipe.

My mixture didn't look like a dough, but did have the elasticity of a bread like mixture.

I took a third of the mix into my lined tin and my jam was taken out of the fridge. I spread the jam across the mixture, avoiding going right to the edge.

Amanda says to sprinkle the the rest of the bar mixture but my mixture could only be SPLATTED.

After splatting, i wish my mix good luck and popped it in the oven for 30 mins.

Upon taking out, it looked a caramel brown. I let it cool for around an hour to ensure a clean cut of bars.

The Taste

Very, very similar to the healthy flapjacks i made a few months ago. 
The jam adds a gorgeous sweet taste and goes so well the banana-esk flavour.

I wouldn't say mine turned out as crunchy looking as Amanda's, but they sure tasted good.
With practice, these bars could potentially stop me investing into Belvita bars.

THE VIDEO



Thank you so much for you time reading my post & look forward to chatting soon, 

Love, Emilie x



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