Homemade Muesli Goodness Bar

Two days ago, wifey and me had the wildest idea to make our own energy bars. We've eaten muesli, granola and those commercially available energy food which are supposed to be "healthy". Healthy is subjective as the bars available commercially are laden with a lot of extra ingredient, coloring and preservative.

This post was semi-inspired by OP Sofian Ironman Ismail. I was so impressed at the weigh he lost coupled with his inspiring training that i am a believer to his Energy Bar diet now.

So, the current chef-extraordinaire went to do some searching on the internet and found numerous recipes with even more ingredients and preparation. I am not a fan of crunchy energy bar as it is hard to chew and most of the time, inside a dry mouth, you can choke and it takes more effort to chew before swallowing. We decided to go for my all time favorite chewy type.

Some recipe call for flour and butter. Some are more basic and many other variation was available.

We decided what we wanted and a quick look inside the fridge and we found the ingredient below, which was used for the production of this first muesli bar at home.

Prune, walnut slices, cranberries, sunflower seeds, chocolate chips, honey, rice malt syrup and of course, a packet of roll cooking oats bought specially for this project. We need about 60grams of butter as well, which i supposed lend a bit of saltiness and helps to "cook" the oats in the oven, or prevent them from drying out.

We used the measurement of of of the recipe and mixed up to 900ml worth of rolled oats (or two cups), then the above ingredients are a handful each. We did not have the most basic energy bar item which is raisins. We ran out of them when i mixed it for my oat-muesli mix which i bring to office for meal.

We preheated the oven to 160 degree C and proceed to mix the item in a big bowl.

The above was handmixed to ensure good distribution of the items. Don't worry, we washed our hands.

Once the items are well mixed, it's time to put in some sort of liquid that will bond them together. We opted for Rice Malt Syrup. Those that know me will know that this is the main ingredient of my homemade powergel that had powered me through three Ironman races. They are slow burning complex carbs which releases energy progressively. It is also not sweet and not as icky as honey if you take it long term or for a prolong period of time.

I was two minded about putting in Laif's Maltodextrin to act as binding agent apart from being complex carb by itself. maltodextrin is found in all energy drink and food and a lot of us are using it during races by mixing the powder with our favourite fruit concentrate/syrups.

We swore we tried to mix the items with the spatula, but it was just too sticky and we ended up having to (wash our hands) use our hands...

We then put in soften butter and the consistency of the mixture become somewhat more bearable.

We then greased the 10inch by 10inch baking pan with the residue melted butter and spread the mixture onto the tray. it already looked yummylicious.

We placed them in the oven, cleaned up and waited for 20 minutes. The kitchen started to smell like a bakery again at 1130pm and when i came down from my bath, a pan of freshly made muesli bar was ready.

We just need to cut them into bite size pieces. a 10x10 pan made 12 of these goodness. Because we use only good stuff, it is not commercially viable. But we most welcome friends to come over and use our kitchen and produce a batch of their own. Electricity and company (plus coffee) on us. :)

I brought four pieces to the office and it was wiped out within 5 minutes. Most don't believe it was made. Again, i guess no one believe that me and wifey are multi-talented, and we are not just good at making babies. ;-)