By the following winter, I was more into ski touring, whenever the opportunity presented itself. After a few occasions of suddenly getting extremely tired or cold, I realised that my standard snacks were a rather poor choice for fairly intense exercise in a cold environment. The sugar hit of the brownies or cookies wore off too quickly. So I started taking these, which have rather more substance and the added bonus of being robust enough to survive even a multi-day tour.
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| Delicious, long lasting energy |
Ingredients:
85g butter
90 ml (= 6 tablespoons) golden syrup
100g granulated sugar
150g dried cranberries
110g mixed cereal flakes
75g rolled oats
35g rolled oats, ground to a flour in a food processor / blender / well-cleaned out coffee grinder (if no grinder is available, see notes below)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon or grating of nutmeg (optional, I often don't spice them)
150g almonds, roughly chopped (some big pieces, some small)
70g pumpkin seeds
70g sunflower seeds
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a 20cm x 20cm pan with baking paper.
Put the butter in a large saucepan with the syrup and heat gently until butter is all melted. Stir in the sugar and cranberries and heat for another minute or two. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix thoroughly.
Tip into the lined baking pan and press down firmly (try using the bottom of a glass if the mixture is sticking too much to your hands or the spoon).
Bake for about 30 minutes. They should be little brown around the edges and on the top. Stand the pan on a cooling rack and leave until cold - this is important as they will still be soft when you take them out of the oven, and will break if you try to remove from the pan too soon.
When cold, remove from the pan and use a bread knife to cut into 16 squares. 8 of these will fit perfectly, wrapped in a plastic freezer bag, inside a pair of Dynafit 100mm crampons and will fuel several hundred metres of ascent, depending on your greed and speed.
Notes: The combination of fruit, nuts and seeds can be varied to include whatever you like: sultanas, raisins, dried apricots, dried mango, apple rings, hazelnuts, brazil nuts, pecans, pistachios (not salted), other seeds, coconut flakes, crystallised ginger (in small quantities, skip the cinnamon), … In total they should weigh 350g - 450g. Large pieces (brazil nuts, pecans, dried apricots, apple rings) should be chopped up first to about sultana-size. Dried fruit should be added first to the butter-syrup mix and cooked with than for a minute or two (as the cranberries are above). If you don’t have a processor or blender to grind the oats to a flour, either just use them whole or replace with ground almonds or hazelnuts. The bars will crumble a bit more easily, but still taste as good. You can also replace the mixed cereal flakes (CH: e.g. Coop 5-Korn-Flocken) with plain oats.
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| In the Cookieschutz and ready to go |
