No-bake energy bars with puffed rice cakes and dates

For this recipe, you’ll need a food processor and a 25 x 18 cm (9 x 7 inch) baking dish or mold, a high-heat scraper or a big spoon and some parchment paper. You can also use a 20 x 20 cm (8 x 8 inch) square mold or a similar sized one. Ingredients: 175 g (1 cup) of pitted dates. You can also use prunes, figs or dried apricots, but keep in mind that if the fruit is too dry you’ll need to soak it in water beforehand so that the resulting mixture is moist enough. 85 g (¼ cup) of honey. As you know, you can use any other sweetener of your choice. 32 g (2 tbsp) of peanut butter or any other nut butter of your choice. 150 g (1 ½ cup) of chopped nuts, seeds and dried fruit. Use any kind you like or whatever you have around at home. 4 whole-grain puffed rice cakes. Approximately 30 g ( 1 ½ cup). Preparation: Grease the baking pan and line it with parchment paper. Set aside. Put the dates, the honey and nut butter in the food processor. Blend the mixture well. If you feel it turned out a bit too dry you can add a few teaspoons of water gradually, but not too much or it’ll be too liquid. Pay close attention to the consistency in the video recipe. If your food processor is big enough, you can add the rest of the ingredients inside. If it is quite small, transfer the mixture to a big bowl and then add the mixed nuts, seeds and dried fruit, and the 4 crumbled puffed rice cakes. Mix all the ingredients until the dough is uniform and sticky. Pour the mixture in the mold, spread it evenly and press until compact. Put the mold in the fridge overnight or for at least 5-6 hours until the dough is firm enough. Then, use the parchment paper to take it out of the mold and slice into 8 bars. Nutrition information: We used honey, peanut butter, dates and a blend of nuts, seeds and dried fruit. By cutting out 8 portions, each of them will have: 221 calories, 37 g of carbohydrates, 6.3 g of fat, and 3.1 g of protein.

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