Monday morning chocolate and oat bars
My mother insists on breakfast and I insist on a yummy breakfast. While flipping pancakes and waffles is a weekend affair in my household, on a weekday morning, I try to rustle up easy delights.
My ideal breakfast treat is the one that cheers me up when Monday morning blues need to be battled. It should make me rise and shine and fill me up with energy enough to accompany Spiderman on his next expedition.
If you ask me more, I’ll say it should go well with my cup of milky-masalewali chai, hot chocolate, fruit juice, yogurt smoothie or whatever my choice of drink is on that particular day. It should be convenient to stock and easy to make as well.
Once such creation is the oat and chocolate bar. Filled with the goodness of oats, dry fruits, healthy seeds and coconut powder, the bars ooze chocolate and their sugar content is just enough to pep me up for the day to come.
I’ve called them Monday morning chocolate and oat bars because I promise they will brighten up the toughest seeming weekday for you.
Ingredients for the oat bar:
2 tbsp butter, 1 cup raw oats, 1 tbsp cup pumpkin seeds, 1 tbsp raisins, 1 tbsp desiccated coconut powder, 1 tbsp dry fig (finely chopped), 1 tbsp almonds (roughly chopped), ½ cup brown sugar
Ingredients for chocolate ganache:
1 cup good quality chocolate (finely chopped), ½ cup cream
Method:
Microwave chocolate until it melts completely. If you don’t have a microwave you can heat chocolate in a double boiler until it turns liquid.
Add cream to it and mix well. Leave it aside and allow it to come down to the room temperature.
In a thick-bottomed pan, roast oats on a slow flame for 3 to 4 minutes and keep them aside.
Now heat one tablespoon of butter and add almonds, pumpkin seeds, raisins, desiccated coconut powder and dry figs to it.
Roast all the ingredients until light brown in colour or until they give out a faint, nutty aroma.
Once done, remove from the pan and mix it with roasted oats. Allow it to come down to room temperature.
Now heat another tablespoon of butter and add all the brown sugar to it. Melt it on slow flame and continue to stir it until all the granules have completely dissolved.
Add oats to the caramelized sugar and mix well.
Grease a baking tray with butter and line the oat mixture to create a base for your bar. Do this quickly as sugar has a tendency to crystallize and harden.
Pour a thick layer of chocolate ganache on top of the oats and smoothen it with the back of a spoon.
On top of this, add another layer roasted oats and even it out with the back of a spoon.
Let the tray chill in the refrigerator for 5-6 hours before cutting it into fat, rectangular squares.
Stock the bars in an air-tight jar for 3-4 days and enjoy during breakfast hours. You can even wrap them in foil and snack on them for a midday sugar rush.
Lol this is my first time to your blog…and I happen to be watching When Harry Met Sally
The bars look tasty!
Thank you very much. You comment means a lot. Do come back for more 🙂
I will! Thanks 🙂
What a cool recipe. And healthy too.
Thank you! Do comeback for more!
This looks delicious! I might have to try them soon.
Thanks, Amy!
I’m always game for bars like these- I might have to give this a spin
Do come and tell me all about your spin. Happy cooking!
Yum! The oat bars look great! I’m a total fan of oats, nuts and seeds. Maybe you could post a recipe for homemade granola (the first thing I thought of when I saw your bars) sometime. Lovely blog!
I know! Thanks for the suggestion. I will consider making some granola too.
Very nice. These look yummy! I haven’t seen desicated coconut in stores where I live. Did you find it at a health food store?
It’s easily available here in Mumbai, India, but you can skip it in case you can’t get your hands on it.
These look delicious! I haven’t found desicated coconut in our stores. Did you buy it at a health food store or a regular market? Nice blog!
Looks like Brownie met Oatmeal and they married! 🙂 My son would love this so I will give it a try!
That’s actually a cool way of putting it 🙂
Wow, I’ve just been reading through some of your recipes and you definitely push the boundaries between sweet and savoury! Loving the combination of oats and chocolate though… I also struggle to eat boring breakfasts at times. Definitely going to give these a try.
Thank you for dropping by. You comment means a lot.
Yum! These look great- gourmet granola bars:) My kids will love them. I’ve never seen dried coconut powder but I’ll just use regular coconut. Your chai sounds good too…
Oh yes, you can use regular coconut, but maybe you can dry roast it first.
These look “nummy, nummy, in my tummy,” as my three year old niece would say. 🙂 I might have to omit the pumpkin seeds for something else, like extra almonds or another nut because I’m not a big fan of pumpkin seeds, but that’s the beauty of such a recipe: You can fix it for your personal tastes! Thanks for sharing!
Yes, of course! Feel free to add your favourite ingredients and skip the ones you dislike 🙂
Wow, nothing lifts up my mood like a good chocolate and cereal bar.
Thanks. I agree with you!
These look delicious!! What a wonderful recipe! I will have to try making them 🙂
Thank you very much 🙂
Looks good! My ganache recipe uses 1/2 the chocolate yours does btw: 1/2C cream and 4 oz chocolate. The last breakfast bar thing I made was a buttermilk blueberry bar, It was yummy.
I’ll have to try these. Thanks
Blueberry bars sound DELISH. You have a link to your recipe? Please paste it here. Would love to go through.
I got the recipe I started with off of pinterest. It’s here:
http://www.alexandracooks.com/2011/06/29/buttermilk-blueberry-breakfast-cake/
I didn’t use as much sugar, probably used at least 2x the vanilla, my husband loves vanilla as a substitute for sugar. Also probably didn’t use the salt, I rarely do and certainly not kosher, I don’t have any. Finally I used frozen organic blueberries, ’cause I had 2 bags in the freezer!
looks delish!
Thank you!
Yummm these look so good! And they have chocolate…I want to make some!
Thank you, Lily. I love you name 🙂
Oh my gosh – massively delicious. You’re a wonderful cook.
Thank you!
Thank you very much.