Tom and I decided that as the dark chocolate and cranberry monkey bars we made were so good, it was definitely time to make them again with a variation. So I had the ingenious plan of making cherry bakewell monkey bars. And they were good - so good they deserved their own blog post.
The ingredients are pretty similar, but obviously a few changes
2 cups rolled or jumbo oats (gluten free if needed)
1/2 cup flaked almonds
1/4 cup milled flaxseed
1/4 cup oat bran
2tbsp maple syrup
2tbsp golden syrup (you can use 4 tbsp of one of these but we decided to try a bit of both)
1/2 cup almond butter
1/4 cup honey
1 large banana, very ripe and mashed
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 teaspoon almond flavouring
1/2 teaspoon salt
Glace cherries, halved
Morello cherry jam
Icing sugar and hazelnut milk (didn't measure, but make sure it's quite thick - the icing can look quite...unfortunate if it's too thin!)
So, as before ( http://twocooksoneblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/monkey-bars.html ) , mix the oats, almonds, flax and oat bran with the syrup and toast this mixture for 10 minutes. Mash the banana and place in a saucepan with the honey and almond butter and melt until you have a runny mixture. Add the vanilla and almond flavouring and the salt to this mixture, then add the two mixtures together. No need to wait for this one to cool down as it doesn't use chocolate so there's no risk of anything melting. However, this time, only put half of the mixture in the dish you are baking it in. Flatten this mixture out so it is a smooth covering for the bottom of the dish, then add a generous layer of morello cherry jam on top. Then layer the other half of the mixture on top and bake for 25 minutes, until golden. Then, add the halved glace cherries on top, and drizzle the icing over the top.
This makes more of a dessert than the original recipe - a bit more of a treat with the icing but it's a really good variation. The flaked almonds give it a lighter texture than the cashews did in the original, and the almond butter goes really nicely with the cherry jam. Morello cherry jam is amazing. I cannot stress to you how important it is to have a jar in your life. It also goes really well on a salted rice cake with a bit of almond butter (not that me and Tom were trying this whilst making these...).
These are becoming a bit of a favourite for us so we will let you know of more variations - and let us know what you try too!
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| Press the first layer down well so the jam stays on top! |
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| We served ours with pomegranate. Don't ask why, it just worked... |
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