Oaty Cranberry & Seed Bites

These delicious little bites were adapted from a recipe from Nigella Express. I had a tin of condensed milk in the pantry and had been looking for a “healthy” recipe to include it in, knowing that the sweetness in the little tin would make all other ingredients sing.

When I stumbled on this recipe while paging through my well thumbed Nigella Lawson recipe book I thought it would be a great excuse to open the tin of condensed milk while being able to incorporate some nutritious nuts and seeds in Mr 3’s diet.
Usually Mr 3 isn’t a huge fan of oaty type treats, but these he just adored. Yes, there is a tin of condensed milk in them, but the rest of the ingredients are as good as a gourmet granola full of oaty and seedy goodness – so in my mind the sugar in the condensed milk is balanced out by the benefits that the other ingredients bring to the table. At least that’s what I keep telling myself!
Oaty Cranberry & Seed Bites
395g Tin Condensed Milk
2 Cups Rolled Oats
1 Cup Fine Dessicated Coconut
1 Cup Dried Cranberries
1/2 Cup Sunflower Seeds
1/2 Cup Sesame Seeds
1 Cup Slivered Almonds
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 120°C and grease a square baking tin.
2. Empty the tin of condensed milk into a pot and pop the pot over a low heat on the stove. Slowly warm the condensed milk, you don’t want to boil it, you just want to loosen the texture so it’s runny and milky.

3. Combine all the remaining ingredients together in a large bowl and mix through thoroughly.

4. Pour the condensed milk over the oaty, seedy bowl and stir through really well to ensure the condensed milk is evenly distributed into the dry mixture.

 

5. Pour the batter into the prepared baking tin and place in the oven and bake for 1 hour.

6. When the tin is removed from the oven, allow it to sit for a few minutes until it’s cool enough to handle so you won’t burn yourself. When it’s cool enough, using a sharp knife cut the slab into bite sized pieces, I made 6 rows of 6, totaling 36 Bite Sized Bars.

 

7. Allow to cool completely then remove the bars from the tin. As you cut them in the previous step, they should remove from the tin fairly easily.

These bars become harder and crunchier with time so after a day or two they are at their peak crunchiness and yumminess! Yes it’s a little tricky to stop at one because they are just so heavenly, I found having them hidden away out of sight in an airtight container was the best way to avoid eating and eating and eating them! These oaty cranberry and seed bites are one of my favorite Nigella Lawson Recipes… and I’m sure they will be yours too!