Breaking The Fast

In her book Nigella Express Ms Lawson calls these beauties ‘Breakfast Bars‘, for me they’re far too tooth achingly sweet to be eaten for breakfast, and to be truthful I don’t always do breakfast anyway, elevenses I can easily cope with though and these suit the occasion wonderfully.  

Breakfast is the first meal of the day and the term originates from the Christian custom of fasting from food between the supper meal of one day, and the morning meal of the next. Forgoing the natural craving to eat was seen as an act of self denial that honours God, while strengthening the religious resolve and faith of the believer. This principle does not only belong to the Christian church, hence the appearance of fast days calendars of many of the worlds religions. It is perhaps important that I point out here not all fasts end in the morning, take for example Ramadan where the fasting occurs during daylight hours and food can be eaten only pre dawn and post sunset. 

The bars do contain a relatively large proportion of healthy ingredients but the whole tin of condensed milk doesn’t quite fit the healthy bill and I’m sure negates a lot of the benefits of these bars, but for an elevenses treat I don’t suppose they’re so bad, well they’re better than shop bought biscuits, bars or cakes aren’t they? At lease we know exactly what is in these.

The ingredients list is so versatile too, the fruit and nuts can easily be changed to suit what you have or your likes and dislikes with no detrimental effect. I made a fair few changes, (what’s new?) and they turned out great, but how could they not with all they yummy components, oats, fruit and condensed milk? I love condensed milk, given half the chance I could eat it with a spoon straight out the container (I don’t I hasten to add, but do make sure there is a spoonful left for me to indulge myself with).

I left out the nuts at the request of my mum, although I really think they’d make a great addition as they’d give the bars a slightly better texture, and added some chocolate coated raspberries as I’d some left sitting in the fridge. 

The recipe you see below is the adapted version I made for the original please click the breakfast bar link earlier in the text.

The Recipe:

• 1 can of sweetened condensed milk (roughly 400g)
• 250g rolled oats
• 75g spelt flakes
• 100g dried cranberries
• 125g dried cherries
• 100g chocolate coated dried raspberries
• 25g pumpkin seeds

1. Preheat oven to 130 C, and oil a 23x33cm baking tin or throwaway foil tin. 
2. Warm the condensed milk gently in a pan till it is more liquid than solid. 
3. Remove from heat and then add the rest of the ingredients, stirring carefully with a spatula so everything is covered. 
4. Pour into the tin and even out the surface, then bake for about an hour. 
5. Let cool for about 15 minutes then slice up. 

Share this: