.Thermomix Cooking: Birdseed Bars with NO refined sugar.

Sharing a recipe for Birdseed Bars today - with no refined sugar! And they can be nut, dairy and gluten free too if you make some simple changes. These homemade muesli bars are sweet and chewy with tonnes of flavour. I can even manage to get my pickiest kids to have a little piece with afternoon tea so that makes it an instant winner in my books! 

There are lots of recipes for homemade muesli bars out there, but most of them are laden with sugar, honey and peanut butter. Probably better than a store-bought bar, but still not ideal. These are much tastier and filling than anything you will buy in a box! The best thing about them is that you can make them with pretty much any dry ingredient you have around or want to add in...leave the oats out and replace with lots of chopped nuts, increase or decrease quantities of seeds, etc. Work with what you like to eat and what you have in the pantry!

This recipe is for Thermomix cooking, but you can easily make it on the stove too by toasting the dry ingredients in a dry pan (stir often and check that it doesn't burn!) and then bring the wet ingredients to boil for 4 or 5 minutes in another pan.

Birdseed Bars
100g rolled oats
60g sunflower seeds
60g pumpkin seeds
40g sesame seeds
20g chia seeds
80g coconut
40g wheatgerm
120g butter or coconut oil
120g rice malt syrup
160g dried fruit, chopped (sultanas, apricots, dates, cranberries, goji berries, etc.)

Place dry ingredients (not fruit) into Thermomix bowl and toast for 5 minutes on varoma temperature, reverse speed 1. Remove from bowl and set aside.
Place butter or oil and rice malt syrup into Thermomix bowl and cook for 6 minutes on varoma temperature, speed 4.
Add toasted dry ingredients and dried fruit into bowl. Mix together for 20 seconds, reverse speed 3.
Spread mixture into a square cake tin lined with baking paper. Press down firmly.
Place in the fridge to set and cool completely. Slice. 
Best kept stored in a container in the fridge.

VARIATIONS:
To make gluten-free, leave out the oats and replace with more seeds, nuts, puffed rice, quinoa flakes, etc.
As long as your dry ingredients measure about 400g, you can pretty much add anything you like to the mix!
A small handful of cacao nibs are a delicious addition.