Homemade Muesli Bars

Muesli bars are an easy snack to drop into your kids’ lunch boxes but they can be expensive – and full of sugar, fat and who knows what else!

Try making these healthy homemade muesli bars instead – your kids won’t taste the difference.

Makes: 24 | prep: 0:10 | cook 0:20

Ingredients

1/2 cup (125mL) honey
1/4 cup caster sugar
125g butter
3 cups rolled oats (see note for gluten-free option) 1 cup Rice Bubbles

1 cup sultanas
1/2 cup chopped apricots, dates or choc chips
1/2 cup desiccated coconut
1/4 cup pepitas (pumpkin seed kernels), sun ower or sesame seeds

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C fan-forced).
2. Grease and line a slice tray (31 cm x 22cm) with baking paper.
3. Combine honey, sugar and butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring, for 2-3 minutes until butter melts and sugar dissolves. Bring to the boil and cook for 2 minutes or until syrup thickens slightly. Remove from heat.
4. Combine remaining ingredients in a large bowl. Pour over the hot syrup and stir to combine.
5. Spoon into prepared pan and press rmly to make sure the mixture will stick together.
6. Bake in oven for 15-20 minutes or until golden.
7. Cool and then refrigerate until well chilled and cut into 24 slices (about 2cm x 6cm).

Notes

When spooning into prepared pans, I wet my ngers with a bit of cold water and press the top to get a smooth nish.
The mixture has a total of 1 1/2 cups of dried fruit – use whatever combination you or your kids prefer.
I have to put some obvious choc-chips on the top so my son will tolerate the sultanas. And let’s not mention the pepitas!

You could use half honey, half smooth peanut butter in the ‘syrup’ or add nuts to the mixture, but as most schools are nut-free now I have omitted these from the basic mix.

Recipe created by Melissa Hughes for Kidspot (http://www.kidspot.com.au/), Australia’s best recipe nder.