Nutrition
| Per 100 g | Per 1 oz (28 g) | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 410 kcal | 116 kcal |
| Protein | 10.7 g | 3 g |
| Fat | 28.4 g | 8 g |
| saturated | 6.3 g | 1.8 g |
| Carbohydrate | 22.2 g | 6.3 g |
| sugars | 16 g | 4.5 g |
| Fibre | 16.8 g | 4.8 g |
| Sodium | 9 mg | 3 mg |
Estimated from the ingredients, for the finished dried product. Actual values vary with the produce you use and how far you dry it.
Ingredients
- 70 g chia seeds
- 1 1/2 cups water
- 1/8 cup cocoa powder
- 4 figs, chopped
- 1 apple, peeled, cored and chopped
- 3/4 cup walnuts, chopped
- 2 1/4 tablespoons honey
- 2 1/4 tablespoons cacao nibs
Instructions
- Chia takes up far more water than it looks capable of, so give the seeds their full half hour before draining them. Under-soaked seeds keep swelling inside the bar and crack the surface as it dries.
- Blend the figs, apple, cocoa, honey and walnuts to a paste, adding water a splash at a time. It should drop off the spatula in a thick ribbon; any looser and the mixture runs into the corners of the tray.
- Stir the drained chia and the cacao nibs through by hand. The nibs are the crunch in this, and a blender would grind them into the cocoa and leave you with a bar that is all one texture.
- Let the mixture sit for twenty minutes or so. The chia gel keeps stiffening in that time, and spreading it early gives a sheet that slumps.
- Spread it over one tray for a thick chewy bar or across two for something closer to a cracker. That choice changes nothing else — the thin sheet simply finishes earlier, so start looking at it sooner.
- Begin at 57 °C, which takes 1 hour. The warmer start firms the top quickly, which is what lets you cut clean bars instead of dragging a knife through paste.
- Score the sheet into bars now, drop the machine to 43 °C and give it 16 hours. Cocoa and honey both dull and turn bitter when they are held hot, so the long part of the run happens cool.
- A finished bar snaps rather than bends once it has sat off the tray for a few minutes, and the cut edge looks matt instead of glossy. Anything still glossy at the centre goes back on.
- Keep them in a tin between sheets of baking paper for three weeks. Walnut oil is the clock here — past a month they take on the flat taste of an old nut, and the fridge only makes them sweat.
