Butter, Flour AND Sugar Free Baking Success!

Yessss! My first achievement of 2011!

Ok, the wee cranberry you see there trying to slip out at the bottom is not meant to do that but never mind.

So for most of last year, my healthy baking efforts pretty much revolved around making them butter free, with the occasional sugar or flour free cake thrown in there too. I should point out here that by sugar free, I mean not adding extra sugar content (so I use natural sweetners like fruit or honey instead etc). But ultimately, I'd love to be able to bake with as little of each of these 3 core ingredients as possible - why? Well, one, because they are 3 things that I find a bit deadly so trying to cut down on them in general, but mainly because it's a good challenge and fun way to come up with healthier baking recipes!

Anyway, the skeleton of the recipe started from the Butter Free Blueberry Jam Flapjacks I made a couple of months ago. In short, I swapped the plain flour for more ground almonds instead, and the sugar with honey. From this point, I really couldn't tell you how I came up with the final recipe. There was some fuzzy logic involved - adding honey meant I had to reduce liquid content elsewhere - but then again, using ground almonds needs more liquid binder to hold things together anyway. I actually only made half of the quantities listed below to avoid wasting the ingredients if it all went terribly wrong. But the recipe should work in theory ;-)

The only thing I would say is to keep an eye on them when they're in the oven - I took mine out a little early, left them out for a while as I pondered over them, before deciding to return them to the oven again to firm up a bit. I also covered them with some baking paper halfway through, as it was browning well by then but still a bit too gooey in the middle. I think I worked out that I had them in there about 40 minutes in total, but just start checking them at the 30 minute mark and you should be alright ;-)

Butter, Flour and Sugar Free Cranberry Oat Bars

Print-friendly recipe

For a 12 x 8" shallow baking tin (21 squares):

200g fresh or frozen cranberries
350g ground almonds
200g rolled oats
150g honey
150ml grapeseed oil
2 small eggs
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1) Beat the eggs with the honey and oil.
2) In a separate bowl, mix the almonds with the oats, baking powder and soda. Gently fold in the cranberries.
3) Add the liquid mixture until combined.
4) Pour into a lined shallow tin and bake at 170 degrees for 30-40 minutes until set. It should still be quite soft on the inside, but they will firm up as they cool.

Leave to cool completely before serving if possible, as they taste much nicer that way!

The plan now is to use this as a jumping point for more healthy baking to come...

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