Planet Veggie

I took part in a 78-mile cycling event yesterday and, although I’d bought a Bounce Energy Ball and a Clif Bar to take with me, because I’ve got a bigger cycling event coming up in a couple of weeks and a) shop-bought products are expensive (the Bounce Energy Ball was £1-something and the Clif Bar was a smidge under £2); and b) I wanted to try a variety of different energy bars to see which I liked best, I wanted to make some of my own.

These strawberry and coconut energy bars are based on this Sunshine Bars recipe and they got me happily through 63 miles of cycling. I then had the Clif Bar, felt sick and abandoned the last twenty miles of the ride and got the train home instead. There’s something to be said for the ‘never try anything new on race day’ advice. But if you want something homemade with the right nutrients to get you through a long sporting event (don’t confuse protein bars with energy bars – protein bars contain a high amount of protein and are best after exercise to help repair the muscles, whereas energy bars contain a high amount of carbohydrate to fuel your muscles during exercise), these bars are for you. They taste amazing, too. I used dried strawberries from Urban Fruit because their dried fruit contains fruit and nothing else. I was shocked a few weeks ago after buying a bag of dried cranberries, to find out that cranberries were only about 40% of the ingredients.

Unfortunately, they’re not vegan, as most rice crispies contain Vitamin D, which is made from lanolin – a secretion from sheep skin, found in wool (and now I’ve just typed ‘a secretion from sheep skin’, I feel as sick as if I’d just eaten another Clif Bar) and I also bunged in a bag of Munchy Seeds honey-roasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds that I had lying around in the fruit bowl that never contains fruit. However, vegans need not despair – after finding out that all major supermarkets’ own rice crispies contain Vitamin D, I’ve found a vegan-friendly brand: Kallo Organic Wholegrain Breakfast Puffs, that you can get from Ocado or Holland & Barrett.

Strawberry and Coconut Energy Bars

 

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Prep time

5 mins

Cook time

10 mins

Total time

15 mins

 

Author: Cathy @ Planet Veggie

Recipe type: Energy Bars

Serves: 9

Ingredients

• 50g dried strawberries or other dried fruit, chopped
• 50g porridge oats
• 25g puffed rice cereal
• 40g desiccated coconut
• 25g cashews or other nuts, chopped
• 25g sunflower and/or pumpkin seeds
• 50g demerara sugar
• 60g Golden Syrup
• 50g butter or spread

Instructions

1. Mix the fruit, oats, cereal, nuts, seeds and coconut into a large bowl and mix well
2. Gently heat the sugar, syrup and butter/spread in a saucepan until the butter has melted, then simmer for a couple of minutes
3. Stir the syrupy mixture into the dry mix and combine thoroughly
4. Tip into a 8" square tin and press down firmly (I do this by putting a piece of baking paper over the mixture, then rolling a tin backwards and forwards on top of it)
5. Bake in the oven at 180C for about ten minutes, or until lightly browning at the edges
6. Leave to cool, then put in the fridge for a couple of hours to firm up
7. Cut into 9 pices

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