Oat & Date Bars

These are little carbohydrate powerhouses considering their size and pack a punch in terms of trace elements thanks to the dates. These are an epic bar to fuel a long cycle or to recover from a heavy training session. Even if you don't think dates are your thing, don't knock them til you've tried them.

Serves 16

Ingredients:

500g medjool dates

150g wholemeal flour

200g oats

1/2tsp. bicarb of soda

1/2tsp. salt

125g butter

100g light brown soft sugar

1tbsp. treacle

1tbsp. golden syrup

Method:

1). Firstly, preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4 and grease a small baking tin and line with greaseproof paper. Next, remove the stones from the dates and roughly chop.

2). Place the dates with 200ml of water into a saucepan and place over a low heat. Stir occasionally until all the water has been absorbed. Meanwhile, put the flour, oats, bicarb and salt into a bowl.

3). Put the butter, sugar, treacle and golden syrup into another saucepan and place over a low heat stirring until all the ingredient have dissolved/melted. Then pour into the flour etc. and mix until well combined.

4). Put half of this mixture into the prepared tin and spread and press down to flatten. Then top with the dates and spread evenly. Crumble over the remaining oat mixture.

5). Bake in the preheat oven for ~25mins or until golden.

6). Cool in tin and slice into square.

7). Enjoy!

Nutritional Composition (per serving):

Energy (kcal): 251

Fat (g): 7.6

Saturates (g): 4.2

Carbohydrates (g): 41

Sugars (g): 25

Protein (g): 3.1

The Sports Chef