Apologies upfront for the photographs-
Ok so take a look at this:It’s from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s ‘River Cottage Everyday’ cookbook, and it’s a wonderful collection of recipes. The recipe is here and is well worth the outlay!
Seems like quite a simple recipe for some seedy oat bars that are marginally healthier than flapjack!
Now the dry ingredients and the tin are ready, it seems quite easy to melt the rest of the ingredients ready to mix!
This is the selection of ‘wet’ ingredients. Everything is melted very very slowly and stirred occasionally. The coarseness of the peanut butter is visible here with some butter still to melt!
The melted mixture has just been added on top of the dry ingredients. This is when a strong arm is required for mixing!
With mixing started, the range of ingredients reveal themselves and it starts to smell amazing!
As mixing progresses, there is a gradual stiffening of the ingredients and the spoon is harder and harder to push through the oat and fruit mix!
In to the tin, and the mix is roughly smoothed out to the four corners. It’s not easy to spread but not too important initially!
With a bit more time, the mixture is pressed in to the tin and its corners, trying to flatten the surface without dragging it! It’s tricky to make it exactly even but it’s not too difficult to estimate and even out the top.
Only crumbs left on the board. Now where are those spare seeds that Hugh insisted we reserve for at the end?
The final seeds are shaken on the top of the smoothed mix before baking. This is the baked mix and it’s just golden on the top, and the edges are slightly more ‘done’ just as the instructions indicated!
After letting the slab cool completely, the slab is cut in to 16 but it could have gone in to more as each is quite filling and full of flavour!
So this is what it looks like inside. The fruits and nuts are clearly visible; there are plenty of seeds too and so it’s crunchy, chewy, fruity, spicy, and sweet……yummy!
Two layers in the tin, and they are supposed to keep for up to a week! They didn’t of course, because Mr Crumbs had to test them before packing them off to Scotland for his Munro bagging adventure!
Well recommended!