Renee Brown's back to school muesli bars

Buckwheat and date muesli bars

Ingredients:

2 cups of oats
1 cup of desiccated coconut
3/4 cup of raw almonds
1/4 cup of raw buckwheat groats
6 medjool dates
1/4 cup of dried apricots
1 medium banana (mashed)
1 tsp of cinnamon
1 tsp of maca powder (optional)
1/2 cup of seeds (I used pumpkin and hemp)
2 tbsp of nut butter (peanut or almond)
5 tbsp of coconut oil
3 tbsp of maple syrup
1 tbsp of tahini
Pinch of salt

Note: For the wet ingredients I used a mixture of almond butter and tahini. If you don't have tahini you can easily substitute it with more nut butter.

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees fan bake and line a baking tray with baking powder. In a blender or food processor lightly pulse the almonds until you have coarse almond flour. I like to pulse mine for 10 seconds so I still have small almond pieces. Tip into a large bowl and add the dry ingredients, stirring until well combined. In a saucepan, add the wet ingredients and gently simmer over a low heat until everything is smooth and combined (about 3 minutes). Take the pot off the element and mix in the mashed banana.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well until combined. Tip the mixture into your baking dish and press down firmly. Bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes until you have a nice golden brown coating on top. Once it's cooked, take it out of the oven and let it sit for 1 hour or until cool. Then put it in the fridge to set for at least a few hours. This will harden the coconut oil and make it easer to cut. Cut the muesli bar into square chunks and store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

Renee Sexton is a nutritionist, health coach, vegan and foodie. Visit her blog to see her delicious recipes and her posts about nutrition, health and wellbeing.