A simple and delicious idea for one little break in the middle of the morning? If you don't feel like eating the cereal bars that are commonly found on the market, here is an easy and quick recipe to make them at home: all you need is cereals, dried fruit, maple syrup and a little brown sugar!
Ingredients for about 15 pieces:
- 150 g of organic mixed cereals
- 70 g of chopped hazelnuts
- 50 g of raw cane sugar
- Maple syrup (alternatively, you can use malt)
- a level teaspoon of ginger in powder
- finely chopped lemon zest
Meticulously weigh all the ingredients, then put it on sugar and maple syrup in a saucepan, heat over medium-low heat and stir to prevent the sugar from sticking to the bottom; when the mixture becomes liquid, add the cereals and chopped hazelnuts.
Mix well (the cereals and the chopped hazelnuts should never stick to the bottom) for about 20 minutes: after a few moments the mixture will become quite hard, difficult to turn and it will start to caramelize, but don't worry: continue to turn with energetic but slow movements.
After about 20 minutes, add the ginger and lemon zest, stir again and turn off the stove; pour the mixture into a well-oiled square (or rectangular) pan, with a wooden scoop level the surface to spread the dough well (I recommend never touching the dough because it reaches very high temperatures!), then carve the layer obtained by forming of regular shaped bars and let cool.
A once the dough has hardened, you can remove the bars from the pan (you will find a bit of difficulty at this stage, because the mixture - once cold - will be quite hard): at this point you can individually wrap them with baking paper and the kitchen twine (so they will be comfortable to take to the office); if you decide to keep them at home, place them in an airtight container, always separating them with baking paper.
Of course, you can replace the hazelnuts with almonds, walnuts, sesame, coconut or peanuts (or make a mix), and - for non-vegans - you can use honey instead of maple syrup.
For a more greedy version instead, instead of zest can add some chocolate chips.
Read also:
- Homemade vegan bars
