Fruit filled Oat Bars
I popped this quick recipe up on my instagram stories and you all wanted it written down. So I aim to serve and here we are. These fruit filled oat bars are delicious and it’s a great way to use frozen fruit. Which I find is much cheaper these days, with the cost of everything going up. I’m never without a couple of bags of frozen mixed berries. All the purple are filled with great antioxidants, which can never be a bad thing.
These have lots of great things in them, chia seeds for fibre, peanut butter for protein, oats for slow release carbohydrates. There’s not an over used amount of sugar, which I love. Because I often find that I reduce the amount of sugar in a recipe when I come across one. This recipe was born by literally just trying to use stuff up from my pantry and freezer. I often do that. Especially when I’ll only fill it up again this gardening season. These take just over half an hour to make and are best if you let them set in the fridge for an hour before chopping them into bars. They last five days in an air-tight container and can be frozen if you wish.
Fruit filled Oat Bars
Serves: 9-18 (depending how small you cut them)
Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 35 mins
Total time: 45 mins
Ingredients
210g oats ( or 2 cups)
100g plain flour + half a tbsp (or 1 cup + 1 tbsp)
125g organic coconut sugar (or 1 cup)
100g chia seeds (or 3/4 cup)
3 tbsp peanut butter
75g butter (around 3/4 cup)
80ml maple syrup (or 1/3 cup)
300g frozen fruit (around 3 cups)
Handful of mixed seeds (pumpkin, sunflower)
Swap out the fruit seasonally, this is great with plums. You could use rhubarb, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries. Possibilities are endless!
Directions
Add frozen fruit to a pan with the coconut sugar, I like to add a squeeze of lemon but you don’t have to. Add a couple tbsp of water and leave to bring to a boil.
Whilst fruit is cooking, measure out oats and flower into a mixing bowl. Set aside. Pre-heat oven to 180c.
In a second pan, add peanut butter, maple syrup and butter, mix and melt on a medium heat until combined.
Pour this mixture into oats and mix all to combine. Should look a bit like a crumble type mixture.
When your fruit has been boiling for about ten mins. Add half a tbsp flour to thicken. Cook for 1 minute.
Take off the heat and stir in the chia seeds, allow to sit and slightly cool for four mins. This should create a thicker mixture.
Line a 9x13 cm tin whist your fruit is cooling, add half the oat mixture and press down so it’s flat.
Add an even fruit layer, then top with the other half of the oat mixture, sprinkle with the seeds and pat down gently.
Cook for 20 mins at 180c or until gently golden brown.
Allow to cool and then store in the fridge for an hour before chopping into bars.