Comfort food for me reminds me of home, a sense of being safe and warmth. Oats are my favourite comfort food, think of a crumble topped with an oat topping, a big bowl of steaming porridge, granola, my Moroccan style vegetable pie with a herb oat crust and these oat bars!
You can create a batch of these oat bars for some comfort using whatever you find in your food cupboard. I first created these in the middle of a snow storm in Ireland and shared via my first Instalive video to share how to create a batch of these oat bars.
Any kind of stoned or cored fruit would work well instead of apples. Berries fresh, frozen or dried are also great additions and any kind of nut works well. I have used tahini combined with coconut oil and honey as my binding agents but you could substitute with all of one or just regular butter and golden syrup. Nut butter can be swapped for the tahini too.
If you don’t have any eggs in stock or what to bake these for vegans simply use 1 tablespoon ground flaxseeds with 3 tablespoons of water instead of the egg white.
Makes 9 bars.
- 3 tbsp tahini
- 2 tbsp honey
- 55g coconut oil
- 140g jumbo oats
- 55g plain flour or oat flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1-2 tsp cinnamon (depending on your preference)
- 25g hazelnuts, halved
- 1 egg white
- dash of milk
- 2 small apples, cored
- Preheat an oven to 200°C/180°C fan/400°F and line or grease a 21cm baking tin with parchment or oil.
- Melt the tahini, honey and coconut oil in a saucepan over a medium heat until a runny mixture is formed.
- Place the oats, flour, baking powder, cinnamon and 20g hazelnuts in a large mixing bowl.
- Whisk the egg white and milk (flax meal and water if using) together until frothy.
- Dice one apple and slice the other into wedges.
- Pour the melted ingredients into the dry and mix together.
- Add the egg and diced apple and mix again.
- Pour the mix into the prepared tin and even spread with the back of a spoon.
- Sprinkle over the remaining hazelnuts and press the apple wedges into the mix.
- Brush the flesh of the apple wedges with any of the leftover egg mix.
- Bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes or until lightly golden and cooked through.
