Wikd Bars

One of my Christmas presents was Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Light & Easy cookbook. It's a fine book and I've made a few things from it already; the rhubarb and orange smoothie being a particular hit. One of the other recipes I was keen to try sooner rather than later was his Morning Tea Slice. These are essentially nakd bars; raw fruit and nuts blitzed together with some orange juice until they start to become friends.

My version with dates and cherries.

So I made some and declare that they are very good indeed. My version included some dried cherries because I didn't have enough apricots. My mum also made some, using prunes instead of dates because she accidentally gave all her dates to me. Both versions have been shared around friends and family, in person and by mail, and everyone has loved them. Even my dad. We've dubbed them "wikd bars". They make excellent snacks for work, solid substitute breakfasts and great post run fuel.

Mum's version, with prunes

You can find the recipe here, there's little point me reproducing it in this post. Points of note though, I used a square silicon "tin" and found I needed all the juice from the orange. You can get millet flakes from Holland & Barrett if nowhere else and you don't *need* to use unsulphered apricots if you don't want to fork out for them. I cut my batch into 12 squares but really they were a bit too big. These are pretty filling and next time I'll cut them into at least 16. The mixture only takes 10 minutes to put together and they keep really well too.

We've already started discussing variations for future batches. Perhaps subbing some apricots for cranberries and using cranberry juice instead of orange. Maybe replacing some of the millet flakes with ground almonds and apricots with cherries. A couple of spoons of cocoa and a few drops of mint extract.

I adore nakd bars and will still be buying them. the rhubarb and custard, cherry bakewell, gingerbread and banana bread ones are my faves, in case you ever want to buy me some, but I do enjoy making my own version too.