Delia's Marbled Energy Bars

I've been wanting to make these for years, I never got around to it when I was vegetarian simply due to the ingredients in these. You need like 3 different types of cereal and a lot of chocolate and I could never justify the cost! Then when I became vegan ruled them out due to the white chocolate. Well, now that the fab vegan white chocolate buttons are available decided to have a go. I also bought tesco value for all the cereals wherever I could to help with the cost factor ;)

They were almost vegan anyway except for the white chocolate and whole condensed milk. I debated for a long time what to do about the milk. I even tried making my own condensed milk, I don't know if it turned out like condensed milk but what I did end up with was an almost perfect, incredibly yummy dulce de leche!

I think I may have ended up with dulce de leche more than condensed milk due to using sweetened almond milk and still adding the sugar, I actually cooked it far less than the recipe called for but it really couldn't take any more cooking. This stuff was so amazing and I can't wait to try it in recipes, it was too runny for bars but potential is there! I decided not to use it in place of the condensed milk in this recipe though as I thought it would be too sweet - this was essentially caramel.

So in the end I decided to just sweeten some oat cream with maple syrup and I replaced the molasses with brown rice syrup. Not that molasses isn't vegan, I just didn't have any ;) Now I had to guess completely on how much to sweeten the cream with and feel it's just about right. The bars can certainly be sweeter and if you are not going to add the chocolate on top (although why on earth would you want to do that?? ;) then you will need to sweeten it up a lot - in fact the dulce de leche would work well there. But with the sweet chocolate on top I feel this is just right, after all these are energy bars, not chocolate bars or cookies (although I've tagged them as such!) or a dessert, they shouldn't be overly sweet so work well this way. In the end, I love them :)

Makes 16 bars:

150g dark chocolate

150g dairy free white chocolate buttons

110g pecans

110g dried apricots

150g porridge oats

25g rice krispies

25g bran flakes

75g raisins

100ml oat cream (or soya)

50ml maple syrup

1 tsp brown rice syrup (or molasses, golden syrup)

Preheat the oven to 180C and then toast the pecans for about 7 minutes, until slightly golden and fragrant. Chop them up, not too finely then add to a large bowl. Chop the apricots to roughly the same size and add. Slightly crush the bran flakes then add them and the rice krispies, oats and raisins. In a small saucepan warm the cream with the maple syrup and brown rice syrup until warm and mixed well. Add to the bowl and mix well. Press into a 10 x 6" non stick pan lined with baking paper - overhang the paper to make it easy to remove later. Once evenly pressed pop it in the oven and bake for about 25 minutes, or until golden. Remove from the oven and let cool completely in the pan.

Now melt the dark and white chocolates separately. Marbling with the vegan white chocolate is tricky due to it melting much more runny than dark chocolate. I suggest melting the white first then leaving it out for a bit to thicken up, stirring now and again to keep it smooth. Then melt your dark chocolate. You may have to do the same for the dark, once they are of similar consistency then it's ready. I even had to chill my white chocolate briefly to get it right.

Pull the bars out of the pan and turn upside down onto a chopping board. Place Tbsp's of the dark chocolate randomly over the surface then do the same with the white chocolate, filling up the spaces left. Using a knife in a zig zag motion, marble the chocolate, careful not to push it all over the edges, best to leave some edges bare than to lose any chocolate! Now just pop it in the fridge to set - about an hour. I pulled mine out after about 1/2 hour to cut them, then put them back in to fully set. Or you could pull them out after the hour, let them get to room temperature and cut them then. But if you try and cut them when cold the chocolate will just shatter.

Original recipe and source: Delia Online.

Vegan Condensed milk recipe: Vegan Baking .

♥