Granola – Miss Madeleine Bakes

I was planning to make my usual granola bars but was determined to use up the leftover pumpkin purée from the Spiced pumpkin cheesecake I made yesterday as well as a bunch of walnuts my aunt donated to me… So a new recipe was born, fairly accidentally, and it’s so gorgeous, I just had to share it! These are much chewier than my other recipe which is very much of the crunchy variety. But I’m in love with pumpkins for the moment so I can’t get enough of these recipes!

Ingredients

200g Gluten-free oats

70g walnuts

75g rice syrup (or other liquid sweetener, such as maple syrup or honey)

55g lactose-free or vegan butter

50g xylitol or other sugar

100g pumpkin purée (for the recipe, see Spiced pumpkin cheesecake)

50g dark cooking chocolate

1 tsp gingerbread spices/speculaaskruiden

Pinch of salt

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 180C and roast the oats and chopped nuts on a baking sheet for 10 mins or until slightly brown.

In the meantime, put the rice syrup, butter, and xylitol in a pot on a medium heat until dissolved. Add the pumpkin purée and mix until well combined.

Add salt and spices to the oats and nuts, and add the wet ingredients to the dry ones. Mix until wel combined.

Put in a lined roasting tin and press down well until you get a shape you’re happy with to cut pieces from when it’s solid.

Melt the chocolate au bain marie or in bursts in the microwave (I don’t normally do the latter but was in a hurry this time and it worked very well).

Drizzle the chocolate over the granola mix and put the roasting tin into the freezer for 2 hours. Take out of the freezer and cut into rectangular chunks or the shapes you desire.

These can be stored in the fridge for 5 days or you can keep them in the freezer and defrost as required.

Is it september already?! To make sure my kid who is currently going through a massive growth spurt has some healthy snacks in school, I’ve been baking some healthy goodies. I’ll talk about the energy balls I made in a future post. But for now I want to share my yummilicious recipe for granola bars… I’ve catered for my kid’s growing needs (ie with added protein powder and probiotics powder) but you can of course leave these out or add your own powders…

So here it is – my recipe is gluten and lactose free and low in sugar, but I’ll give information to make it vegan.

Ingredients

200g gluten-free oats

60g chopped nuts (I used almonds and pecans but feel free to choose what you have in the house)

75g honey (replace with rice or maple syrup to make vegan)

55g lactose free butter (I’m sure it works with vegan margarine too)

50g xylitol

Pinch of vanilla and salt

5g protein powder

5g probiotic powder

And about 50-70g of other ingredients of your choice. I chose (as I wasn’t sure my son would like granola bars – he hadn’t had any before) 50g chopped up oreos.

Method

Start by preheating your oven to 200C.

Chop the nuts fairly well (but so the chunks are still visible, not up to powder stage) and put them on a baking plate together with the oats. Leave them in the oven for 10 mins until they start smelling of granola 😋

In the meantime, put honey, xylitol, and butter into a pot and melt on a medium heat.

Stir all your ingredients together (including the ones you’ve added and press the mix down in a lined baking tray. Press down quite firmly so the bars will stick together.

Put in the freezer for 30 mins until firm, and then cut into bars. Delish!

Category: Granola

Spiced pumpkin granola bars

Lunch bag granola bars with chopped oreos