Date & Oat Bars with Sucanat
I spent last weekend organizing my baking drawer - where I keep all of my flours, sugars, nuts, seeds, and other miscellaneous ingredients. It had gotten a bit out of hand and was difficult to find anything so I finally ordered some food containers and got it under control. I was then looking for some baking inspiration and came across this Soft Date & Oat Bars recipe from the Sweet cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh. I realized - after having just organized my baking drawer - that I actually had all of the ingredients I needed to make these bars and couldn’t resist giving them a try. I did make some changes and swapped things out - for instance, I didn’t have date syrup so instead I used maple syrup and I chose to use Sucanat instead of demerara sugar. I also didn’t have orange zest or orange blossom water so I left those out.
As a reminder, Sucanat is an abbreviation for “sucre de canne naturel” or natural cane sugar and is a less processed, more natural sugar in comparison to granulated white sugar/brown sugar. Due to the minimal processing involved in producing Sucanat, it retains more of its nutritional properties as well. The minimal processing does mean that the granules of Sucanat are larger and not uniform though so when adding it to recipes, including this one, you will need to grind it in a coffee or spice grinder first so that it can better incorporate in with the the rest of the ingredients.
The end result is amazing - these are bars that really toe the line between sweet treat and healthy granola bar so they can be eaten for breakfast or dessert. The texture is the perfect combination of soft and gooey plus crunchy from the seeds and nuts.
I hope you give these a try!
Makes one 12x8 baking dish (about 16 bars depending on how you cut it)
Ingredients
50 g whole almonds
50 g cashews
200 g old-fashioned rolled oats
35 g pumpkin seeds
35 g sunflower seeds
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
120 g (about 7-8) Medjool dates, pitted, halved lengthwise and each half cut into 3 pieces
200 g unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
180 g Sucanat, grind in coffee/spice grinder
75 g maple syrup
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
Directions
Preheat your oven to 350 F. Grease a 12x8 inch baking pan.
Spread the almonds and cashews out on a baking sheet and place in the oven to toast for about 10 minutes, or until the nuts are lightly browned and fragrant. Remove from the oven and allow to cool before chopping roughly into small pieces. Transfer to a large mixing bowl and set aside.
Place 80 g of the oats in a food processor or grinder and briefly pulse to break into small pieces (you don’t want to turn it to powder so be careful). Add the processed oats and the unprocessed oats to the bowl with the nuts.
Place all of the seeds in a dry frying pan and toast over medium-low heat, stirring frequently so that they toast evenly. Add the seeds to the mixing bowl. Also, add the dates to the mixing bowl as well.
In a medium saucepan, combine the butter, Sucanat, and maple syrup and place over medium-low heat. Stir gently until the butter has melted and the mixture comes together. Remove from the heat, stir in the cinnamon and salt and then add to the mixing bowl. Stir everything together until well-mixed.
Pour into the baking dish and using a spatula or spoon press the mixture evenly into the dish. Bake for about 30-35 minutes or until bubbly and a dark golden color. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about 30 minutes before cutting into bars (you want to do this after about 30 minutes as the bars won’t have hardened yet). Don’t remove from the baking dish until they are completely cool as they will crumble and fall apart.
