Sesame-Honey-Bars

Hey there :)

For a while now I felt like baking or cooking something with sesame. But I didn’t really know what exactly I wanted to cook so this feeling was just simmering inside me for a bit without a real manifesting idea. But I am sort of still on the whole granola-bars-trip. When one time then I was grocery-shopping my eyes were caught by some halvah and there we had it: Sesame-Honey Bars it was going to be it.

The next time window I was able to find to bake I headed for the kitchen. I had a rough idea, not a real plan. You barely need it with bars I thought. I knew we had some carrots I wanted to use, but not the exact amount and I certainly was not aware of how little honey we had left. Silly me not checking beforehand and buying some more. Well, couldn’t be helped now, gotta work with what you have. At least I had plenty of sesame ;)

I did use the rest of our honey But unfortunately it wasn’t really enough to hold those little bastards together so I improvised and added a bit of coconut syrup that I bought some weeks ago luckily. But if I had had more honey, be sure I would have used this instead. The same goes for the carrots. It was a mere sad amount of two mini-carrots that were left. I really need to check on this stuff the next time…

Anyway, the result still came out okay, less honey-y and carrot-y than I was hoping for, but next I will know better ( I hope). The bars aren’t super firm and actually crumbled away at the sides when I was trying to get them out of a loaf-pan. Wasn’t that much, but still the versions I made in tiny forms turned out to be more stable. So if you have small forms (or even a muffin form would work I guess) use them. Silicon are the best, otherwise use some parchment paper.

Or just let the big ones crumble and have them stirred in some yoghurt for breakfast. At least this what I did. Went along well with some added goji-berries ;)

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Recipe

prep time: 20 minutes + baking time   yields: about 10-12 bars

Ingredients

• 165g / 1 Cup sesame
• 55g / ½ Cup puffed quinoa
• 35g / 1/3 Cup grated carrots
• 1 Tbsp. shelled hempseeds
• 80g / ¼ Cup honey (and although it rhymes so nicely, it shouldn’t be too runny)
• 100g / 1/3 Cup coconut syrup
• 2 Tbsp. coconut oil, melted
• 2 Tbsp. Tahini
• 1 Tbsp. hempseeds, shelled
• 1 Tbsp. Chia seeds + 3 Tbsp. water
• pinch of salt

Instructions

In a small bowl place the chia seeds and add 3 Tbsp. of water and mix together. Set aside and let gel. This takes about 15 minutes.

If not done yet wash, peel and grate the carrots.

In a big bowl mix sesame seeds, puffed quinoa, grated carrots, hempseeds and a bit of salt.

In another bowl mix all the wet ingredients (honey, coconut syrup, coconut oil and tahini).

Stir the wet ingredients into the sesame-quinoa mixture until evenly combined. Then add the chia-gel and mix again.

Then add to preferred form and bake at 150°C with circulating air for about 40 minutes. I tried it two ways: In a normal sized loaf pan and in some tinier rectangular forms. If you have something like this, I would suggest you to use this, as the result will be a little more stable ;)

Take out, let cool and slice if necessary