and now for something...

...a little bit more healthy!  After all that excitement with chocolate (the giveaway will stay at the top of my blog until 20th March when it closes)  I thought it would be a good idea to have something around to nibble which, satisfies the need for sweetness but, is still GOOD for YOU.

Can there be such a thing, I hear you ask?  Oh yes, and what makes it even better is that you can get all your supplies online from Healthy Supplies whose strapline is No Nonsense Nutrition!

 I started by making some flapjacks,  I was so impressed by the dried fruit supplied by Healthy Supplies, all organic and probably the best dried cranberries I have tasted, I tried a few as snack, we you have to don't you?  The Sour Cherries are a little firmer than the cranberries, a bit like the difference between currants and raisins,  so I soaked them for an hour in some orange juice to plump them up a bit. The roasted hazelnuts are also really delicious with a lovely roasted flavour and no fear of burning them (which often happens if I try to roast them myself!).

Here are all the lovely ingredients that Healthy Supplies sent for me to try:

Infinity Foods Organic Porridge Oats (rolled oats)

Infinity Foods Dessicated Coconut

Infinity Foods Organic Dried Cranberrries

Infinity Foods Organic Roasted Hazelnuts

Biona Dried Sour Cherries

and here is what I made with them:

Cranberry and Sour Cherry Flapjacks (with peanut butter)
 110g/ 4oz butter
80g/3oz soft light brown sugar
1 tbsp crunchy peanut butter
80ml/3floz clear honey
250g/9oz rolled porridge oats
80g/3oz dried sour cherries
80g/30z dried cranberries
1 tbsp dessicated coconut
50g/2oz roasted hazelnuts, broken into pieces

 

  1. Preheat the oven to 180C/370F/Gas4
2. Melt the butter, sugar, honey and peanut butter together in a pan over a medium heat.
3. Add the rolled oats, dried fruit, dessicated coconut and hazelnuts and stir well.
4. Pour the flapjack mixture inot a greased 30cm/12in x 20cm/8in square baking tin.  Press the mixture into the corners and smooth the top.

 

5. Place into the oven to bake for 20 minutes, or until golden-brown and bubbling.

6. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.  Turn out of the tin and cut into equal-sized squares.

The Flapjacks turned out well, not too sweet with the juicy berries and crunchy hazelnuts adding lots of texture to the bars.  I added the peanut butter to help bind the oat mixture together, but if you can't eat peanuts then you could just use another 40g/1oz of butter.

I'll be back soon with some muffins made using pretty much the same ingredients.  Remember to check out Healthy Supplies, their ingredients are of the highest quality and the service is friendly and efficient.  They also stock a lot of interesting and different ingredients for baking that can be difficult to source.