Chocolate, Honey and Peanut Butter Booster Bars

Or fancy Flapjacks, as my Dad calls them.  Funnily enough he loved these – I don’t think he noticed they contained chocolate, although the chocolate was hard to visually detect as I’ll explain below.

These were made for a trek our group took a couple of weekends ago.  It wasn’t a very strenuous trek, around eight kilometres, but the weather was extremely cold, and despite wearing Thinsulate gloves (which are apparently meant to keep you very warm while still being lightweight), everyone’s hands became virtually numb.  At least it didn’t snow (like the following day).

But anyway, my reason for making these was because I wanted to take snacks on the trek that we could easily munch on; something that would hold its shape well and wasn’t too sticky or messy.

After considering a few options I decided to go with making these booster bars (or flapjacks/granola bars) and a fat-free banana cake which looked like it had the texture and consistency to keep it firm and mess free on the trip.  Unfortunately this brazil nut and dark chocolate chip banana loaf cake got gobbled up before I could take some pictures of it and even the bars didn’t last too long.

This is in effect the second time I’m making these and I tweaked the recipe considerably, but only with good intentions as I wanted to reduce the sugar quantity and rely more on the honey to sweeten the mixture.  After all, some of the ingredients going into this concoction are just so good for you that I felt morally obliged to reduce the ‘baddies’ as much as I could.  But not to the detriment of taste.  That’s where common sense can kick in and you can just take a smaller portion.  Well, you can try to take a smaller portion.

This worked very well on the trip which was a pleasant surprise since when I made these for the first time I thought I made a pretty big error and ruined the whole batch.  You see, I mixed all the dry ingredients together and was melting the ‘wet’ ones, but the damned peanut butter had hardened up (as natural peanut butter is wont to do) and it was taking just ages trying to dissolve all the ingredients.

I became impatient and the minute the wet ingredients had all melted I quickly poured them onto the dry, not realising, silly girl that I am, that I had added the chopped chocolate to the dry ingredients too.  Now, it doesn’t take a genius to guess that the chocolate all melted from the heat of the hot wet ingredients.  It wasn’t the effect I was going for when I decided to add chocolate to the recipe.  I was thinking more along the lines of chocolate chips/chunks embedded in the honeyed oats, giving a sweet contrast to the nuts and seeds.

Well what I got was the chocolate melting to completely combine and become one with the hot wet mixture and there was no going back.  I baked it as it was and just hoped for the best the next day.  I reasoned that we would be so hungry and tired on the trek that we would just be grateful of getting any kind of sweet morsel to boost our metabolism.   

Well these sweet morsels scored highly with trekkers and non-trekkers alike that day and were just as much a hit with the folks at home.  The sweetness of the chocolate and honey combined is just difficult to describe and I completely love it.  I didn’t think I would, but the combination is rich, heady and decadent (not what I would usually describe flapjacks as).  The nuts and seeds impart the requisite texture and crunch and the whole works very well together.

My Dad said that these need to be made again.  No asking or requesting politely.  Just firmly stated.  So here they are again.

Chocolate, Honey and Peanut Butter Booster Bars

·         150g butter

·         150g natural organic peanut butter (crunchy or smooth)

·         100g light brown sugar

·         100g honey

·         50g golden syrup

·         1 lemon, zest only

·         300g Scottish oats

·         125g dark chocolate, 70%, chopped

·         75g almonds, coarsely chopped

·         75g brazil nuts, coarsely chopped

·         50g sesame seeds

·         50g pumpkin seeds

·         20g desiccated coconut

·         15g linseed (I used brown because that’s what I had but golden would be better)

Melt the butter, oil, peanut butter, brown sugar, honey and golden syrup in a pan over low heat.  Make sure all the ingredients are properly dissolved (my organic peanut butter can harden up sometimes) before taking off the heat.   Add the lemon zest and mix in.

Combine all the rest of the ingredients together in a large bowl and pour the hot mixture into it.  Using a stiff spatula or wooden spoon, mix until the wet ingredients are well combined into the dry ingredients and mixture looks uniform.

Pat the mixture evenly into a 8”x8” square tin and bake in a preheated oven at 180C for 25 minutes.  Do not bake for over 30 minutes as this will make the flapjacks hard and crunchy.