Monday 23 November 2015

Recipe: Oat squares with chia jam

Today, I am sharing with you this yummy oat chia jam squares recipe. They are easy to prepare, tasty and not overly sweet. The base of these squares are made of oats and bananas. We will do without flour or oil in this recipe. I have used a bit of rice and spelt flour instead of ground oats in the original recipe. The top layer is made from chia seeds and berries. Original recipe calls for frozen raspberries, but I used frozen berry mix.
Chia seeds are one of the superfoods and come from the desert plan called Salvia hispanica, grown in Mexico, Bolivia and Argentina. They have mild, nutty flavor, making them easy to add to different foods and beverages. They are rich in omega 3´s fatty acids and also contain a lot of protein, fiber and minerals. The seeds are dissolvable, absorbing up to 12 times their weight in liquid when soaked. While soaking, the seeds develop a gluey gel-like coating that gives chia-based beverages and liquid foods a distinctive texture. Chia seeds should always be put into a liquid based mixture (water, plant milks, smoothies, green drinks, raw or baked bars and cookies, breakfast oatmeal) and never eaten dry on its own. Either whole or ground chia can be used in the food preparation. It is a good replacement for an egg and oil in cakes in vegan recipes in addition of providing great health benefits from their nutrient content.


Oat squares with chia jam
 
Ingredients for chia jam:
  • 300 g raspeberries (frozen), I used 400 g frozen berry mix and about 100 g fresh blueberries
  • 3 tbsp chia seeds
  • sweetener according to taste (I used 1 tbsp maple syrup)
 
 Ingredients for oat square base:
  • 2 soft bananas
  • 100 g whole oats
  • 100 g ground oats (here I used 1/2 spelt and 1/2 rice flour with 1 tbsp corn flour)
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • handful chopped wallnuts
  • sweetener of your choice (I used 2 tbsp maple syrup)



First, prepare the chia jam. Place your berries in the pot on the stove, with a little water, stirring regularly. Cook this until very soft. Set aside, stirring in chia seeds and sweetener of your choice. Let it cool for an hour.

Prepare the oat base by mixing bananas (feel free to do it with your hand mixer, or by hand as I did), adding oats, flour (if using), cinnamon, baking powder and sweetener to taste.

Pour 3/4 of the mixture into the prepared baking tray. You can press it down a little bit. I used a bakeware measured 30 x 21 cm and wiped it out with a light coating of coconut oil. You can also line your tray with a piece of parchment (baking) paper. Pour chia jam on the oat base and sprinkle the remaining mixture and crushed wallnuts on top.

Bake at 180 °C for 30-40 minutes.

Take out, let it cool and enjoy. It is very tasty on its own, but you can revamp it with some whipped coconut cream.

1pc: 124 cal, 3g protein, 21g carbohydrates, from which 3g is fiber, 3g fat






recipe adapted from fitcult.refresher.sk

1 comment:

  1. ahaaa now my hunger tippled and you are responsible .. :)

    ReplyDelete