Kids snack – peanut butter, honey and seed booster bars

I love traybakes because they are quick and last for several days, plus you can put in lots of healthy ingredients such as dried fruit and seeds.  This is a particularly good tasting sort of flapjack that should be a winner even with fussy kids, like two year old Freddy whose favourite phrase at mealtimes is suddenly ‘NO I WANT SOMETHING ELSE’.  Grrrrrrr.  As a variation on this recipe you could replace the peanut butter with a mashed banana.  Recipe is from the brilliant cookbook River Cottage Everyday and makes 16.  Check out the ‘kids snacks/meals’ category on the right side of my blog for further ideas!

Ingredients

125g unsalted butter

150g soft brown sugar or light muscovado sugar

125g no-sugar-added crunchy peanut butter

75g honey

Finely grated zest of 1 orange

200g porridge oats (not jumbo)

150g dried fruit, such as raisins, sultanas and chopped apricots, prunes or dates, either singly or in combination

150g seeds, such as pumpkin, sunflower, poppy, linseed or sesame

Line a baking tin, about 20cm square. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees/gas mark 3.  Put the butter, sugar, peanut butter, honey and grated orange zest in a saucepan over a low heat. Leave until melted, stirring from time to time.  Stir the oats, dried fruit and the seeds into the melted butter mixture until thoroughly combined. Spread the mixture out evenly in the baking tin, smoothing the top as you go.  `Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes, until golden in the centre and golden brown at the edges.  Leave to cool completely in the tin (be patient – it cuts much better when cold), then turn out and cut into squares with a sharp knife. These bars will keep for 5-7 days in an airtight tin.

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