Break your Fast

So Leah Kelly requested some healthy additions to the blog in the form of a health bar. I have trailed around online looking at many and many different recipes for health bars, protein bars and breakfast bars. I prefer the idea of doing a breakfast bar as all of the health bars or at least the majority seem to include protein powder in them. I am not one for working out so I really didn't like the idea of including that sort of a recipe.
I have adapted pretty much a big group of recipes to create a Very Berry Crunch breakfast bar. You can adapt this recipe completely to make it more healthy for you or to include different flavours and tastes to make it just as you want.
Here is my adaption but I will include some exchanges for your own try down the end.

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups  -  315g Cornflakes
2 1/4  cups  -   315g Flour
1 1/2 cups  -  255g brown sugar
1 cup        -  225g butter
3 cups       -  450g frozen mixed berries
1/4 cup       -  50g sugar
1 cup        -  175g semi sweet dark chocolate (optional)
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp corn starch/arrowroot or any other type of thickening agent.

Method:

• Preheat your oven to 350ºF or 175ºC
• Combine in a mixing bowl the cornflakes, flour, brown sugar, baking soda and the salt in a bowl. 
• Melt the butter down and mix into the mixture until it is completely combined and looks like crumbs.
• Now take a square tin and press 3/4 of the mixture down to about 1/2 - 3/4 of an inch thick.
• In a pan over a medium heat combine the berries and the sugar and thickening agent until it begins to look like a nice thick lumpy syrup, this will take a little long when using berries that are still partially frozen.
• Pour the berry mixture over the base mixture and then crumble the remaining dry mixture over the fruit.
• Bake in the over for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.
• Leave to cool completely in the tin before cutting into nice sized bars.
• Melt the chocolate in an oven proof dish over a simmer pan of water and then drizzle over the bars in a fashion that suits your taste.

So basically you can swap out of of these ingredients or anything else. 

The cornflakes can be changes to any other breakfast cereal, oats granola, bran ect. 

Instead of using butter you can use maple syrup which is actually fairly good for you. If any of you have tried the awful lemon detox diet, you will know that maple syrup is put in that. Reason being it contains all the nutrients your body needs in a day which is necessary since you don't eat during the lemon detox. I lasted like 2-3 days and that was the best I could do with it! Use golden syrup if thats the taste you like to go for, you can also just change the type of butter you use. Almond butter and peanut butter are a going to give you a nice taste difference. 

Change to different types of fruit or berries. For apples or solid fruits I would defiantly recommend stewing them a lot to soften them. Also what would be delicious is apple and toffee. So you can use small toffee pieces with the apples or you can make a full on toffee layer, maybe throw in some cinnamon too! Oh and your fruit doesn't have to be frozen it can be fresh. I just decided to go with what ever I had in the kitchen today.

And obviously you can change the chocolate to milk or white chocolate or omit it completely. But remember dark chocolate is full of anti oxidants, so in small doses it is good for you!

I may have used a little too much chocolate! 

Oh and one last thing on this recipe obviously if you are trying to be healthy you shouldn't be intending to eat all of these in one sitting. Therefore if you are going to eat them within 3 - 4 days then store them in the fridge in an airtight container. If not freeze them in the container and defrost a few at a time.

Enjoy the pictures and definitely give this a try yourself. 

If anyway has any other requests just comment on the blog or on the Facebook page and I will let you know if it is in the realms of possibility.

Tara