Energy Bar Recipe

Finding an energy bar that tastes good and is not full of rubbish has always been a huge challenge. I'm sure that I am not the only person who has ordered a large batch of energy bars for a cycling or training trip and then during a long ride as you unwrap probably the 20th bar you think "God! I am sick of this flavour!"

Taste fatigue is detrimental to both moral and performance. It may sound obvious but if don't like the flavour of something or you are sick to death of it, you will not eat it, which eventually leads to your performance suffering through lack of energy.

The finished article. 

Through years of trying several different brands of energy bars I have found that I really want them to taste like actual food and not a bunch of chemicals and flavourings. Eventually I decided to experiment with making my own bars.

The advantages of making your own bars are, you know exactly what is going into them, you can experiment with several flavours without having to buy lots of different types of bar, and generally speaking the cost of the ingredients will be cheaper than buying a box of energy bars from a well known brand.
I have always found that the energy bars you buy are very sweet so after 2 or 3  I get really sick of the flavour, especially if I am on a very long ride where I will be taking gels and sports drinks as well. By the end of the ride I am dying for something savoury!
With this recipe I have tried to find the right balance between carbohydrate for energy but not being too sweet. The great thing is that the recipe is pretty flexible so you can add or take away ingredients as you pplease to suit your taste preference. The only 3 ingredients that are essential are oil, oats and honey. This is the recipe to the bars I am currently taking out with me.

Ingredients:
100mls oil. (I use sunflower oil just for the fact it doesn't really taste of anything, I have tried both coconut and olive oil and find the flavour overpowers the rest of the ingredients.)
225g of oats
210mls Honey (The reason I put mls here instead of grams is that I use a protein powder scoop to measure my honey, 210 mls is 3 big scoops or around 300g. Yes that is a lot of honey but these are energy bars for long days in the saddle.) 

The ingredients above form the base of the bars and should be included in whatever batch you make. With the following you can be pretty flexible and change depending on your preferences.

40g Almonds (chopped)
10-12 Dates (chopped) 
2-3 tablespoons of peanut butter (this takes a bit of the sweetness away from the honey and dates, make sure you use a brand of peanut butter that isn't full of palm oil and sugar. I use bulkpowders 100% peanut butter.)
30g 100% cocoa grated or in powder (again this takes the edge off the sweetness and gives the bars a nice chocolate hint)

Here is a picture of all the ingredients. 

Melted Honey

Method 

• Preheat oven to 180C 
• Place the oil in a saucepan and put on a low-medium heat (my electric hob is numbered 1-6 and I usually use 3) 
• Add the honey and stir continuously until it has melted
• Add the peanut butter and also stir until melted 
• Once the both the peanut butter and honey have melted you can start to add your other ingredients and give them a good stir so they are totally covered by the mixture
• Now you can start adding the oats. Add them a small amount at a time and make sure you keep stirring to get all the oats covered in the mixture. As you add more oats it will start to get thick and difficult to stir. At this point also add the cocoa. 
• Transfer the mixture into a cake tin and place in the preheated oven for between 15-18 mins depending on how gooey you want your flapjacks. I usually take them out around 15 minutes.
• Leave to cool. This may sound obvious but if you try and cut the flapjacks now they will just fall apart, I usually leave them overnight. 
• Cut them up into sizes of your preference, I have recently started to cut them into smaller pieces as I have found it easier to eat in one go as opposed to taking a bite then putting it back in your pocket whist moving.

Adding the almonds and dates into the mixture  

Adding the oats 

Nutritional Info if you divide the finished block into 8 bars each bar contains 

• Kcals 324
• Carbohydrates 59g 
• Sugar 36g
• Fat 6g
• Protein 6g  

For long endurance events, the magic number in terms of carbohydrate is 60g/hr which means one of these bars an hour should do the trick in meeting your carb needs. 

If you try this recipe please let us know in the comments section how you get on, or you make any tweaks 

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