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Nut Bar

I love nuts,to me they are the ultimate keto snack. These bars pack them up into a portable package that will sustain you through any food emergency. You know the one one I mean, when you get round to your nans house and she has cooked a lovely tea but none of it is keto compliant and after polity declining sandwiches and cake you’re starving. Or when you are stuck on the train platform because your train has been cancelled and home is several hours away. Pop a few of these in your bag and you will have a great energy power pack,easily transported and the sort of food that my mum would say puts hairs on your chest! The other great thing is that you get to choose what goes into them, and just throw everything into the food processor, I make a batch when my nuts are a bit short dated to use them up. This is my version of a recipe I found online for grain free granola bars

Ingredients

  • 350g mixed nuts/seeds
  • 50g desiccated coconut
  • 2 tablespoons cocoa nibs (optional)
  • 50 g coconut oil melted
  • 4 tablespoons nut butter
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 teaspoon cinamon
  • salt
  • 2 eggs
  • 3 tablespoons sweetener (optional)
Line a small tin with parchment paper, mine is about half the size of my baking sheet, a larger tin means thinner bars and smaller tin will give you chunky bars

Turn the oven on to pre heat Gas5 180c

assemble your ingredients you will need nuts,coconut oil,salt, vanilla,cinnamon,nut butter,cacao nibs , desiccated coconut
decide what nuts you are using, as a rule I use the ones that will go out of date first,usually a combination of almonds,pecans,walnuts, as these are the lowest in carbs.
I had a packet of this in my cupboard, and I find it useful to pad things out with. so If i only had 340g nuts and didn’t want to open a new bag I would add 10g of this.
Weigh out 350g of nuts
Add the cacao nibs and dessicated coconut if using, if nut add extra nuts/nibs
Put nuts,nibs and coconut into your food processor

Personally I try to avoid all sweeteners, I have been sugar free for a year now and find that anything sweet rather unpleasant and but if you want to you can add your choice of sweetener.

add your sweetener to the processor
Melt your cocnut butter and your nut butter in a bowl before adding it to the nut mix.Any nut butter will do,I use almond butter but peanut butter will work well but it depends on if you think it is strictly keto
Finally add a couple of eggs
My processor has 3 buttons start,stop and pulse you want to pulse the mixture so that you can control how much it combines, you want it mixed but not too smooth,you want to have some bite to the end mixt
It will look a something like this
Tip the mixture into the tin and roughly smooth it to fit the tin
Its quite well behaved, Put it into the oven for about 20 minutes, it will take more or less time depending on the thickness of your bars
After about 15-20 minutes the top will be golden brown and the fat will have risen to the top, leave to cool a bit and the fat will reabsorb
When it has cooled down cut into bars . This is best done before the bars get absolutely cold but after the oil has reabsorbed

Its not really possible to say what the nutritional value of these bars are, as it will vary with each batch and each different set of ingredients and if you use sweetener  weather you include the polyols. I don’t think that these are an everyday thing,whichever way you look at it they contain a lot of calories but if you are in maintenance or want some thing healthier that shop bought goods they are perfect bits sized chunks of goodness, perfect for breakfast, long hikes and emergency ‘s.

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