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| Salted peanut rice Krispie treats |
I've told you before that I like to keep some wholesome sweet treats on hand for pre-gym snacking. This is mainly to prevent fainting at the gym (it's happened, and it's embarrassing) and help me to work out harder, but also to break up that long long stretch between afternoon tea and dinner. Since last year's peanut butter granola bars I've slacked off a bit on making them myself, usually having some fruit or whatever random sweet snack I've got lying around at home.
In fact, a couple of weeks ago I was Googling "healthy pre-workout snacks" on the way home from work, and was totally going to make a banana smoothie, until I got home and saw... OOH PIZZA SHAPES! You can guess what happened next. Hah! (No regrets).
However, Sandra recently joined a gym and has been getting super into health and fitness. In addition to working out heaps, she's made a few batches of different wholesome snacks, and has also been testing out different protein powders, commercially made protein snacks and so on. She's inspiring me to lift my game, both at the gym, and in the all-important Gym Snack department.
Enter these salted peanut rice krispie treats! These are basically a riff on a Donna Hay recipe - bars made of puffed rice, nuts and chia seeds, held together with a delicious combo of peanut butter and honey. I replaced her suggested almonds and pistachios with pepitas and salted peanuts. Pepitas because I had them in the cupboard, and salted peanuts because they are my new favourite thing. After the runaway success of my peanut butter granola, I now want salted peanuts on EVERYTHING, all the time. (Have you made the granola? You must!)
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| Ingredients |
In my view, salted peanuts are the perfect choice for these bars because the peanuts echo the peanut flavour in the peanut butter. (Say "PEANUT" again, Sarah!) I do suppose you could try this with another nut butter of your choosing, but for me peanut butter is the ultimate of all the nut butters. I have a habit of buying fancy nut butters at farmers markets, but take forever to finish them. My true love is clearly peanut butter! I go through peanut butter like nobody's business, and usually have about four jars on the go at once. (In case anyone cares, I think Darryl's Fresh Roasted Peanut Butter is the best of all the peanut butters, but no snobbery intended here - I'm also partial to Kraft crunchy and Kraft smooth, and also Reese's peanut butter, with its disconcertingly smooth and airy texture and its strange ingredients list which include monoglycerides, molasses and cornstarch).
Anyway, here's the mixture!
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| Mixture |
And pressed into the tin. (The baking paper overhang makes it easier to remove later). I do love how the green pepitas punctuate the otherwise plain-looking mixture.
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| Mixture in tin |
And now drizzled with chocolate! Milk chocolate is my favourite so I went with that, dark chocolate would work well too. (And incidentally, if you replaced the honey with maple syrup and used a vegan dark chocolate, you could easily make these vegan!)
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| Chocolate drizzles |
I found that these were slightly crumbly, so some parts were a bit difficult to slice. In the recipe below I've suggested refrigerating them for at least two hours (I only did one hour, impatient!), and also weighting them down with a plate and some heavy cans or jars, to really compress them. Another option would be to add an extra few tablespoons of extra peanut butter and honey, so there's more sweet sticky cement to hold everything together. (I'd go with the longer refrigeration-weighting-down option though, because I thought the flavours were just perfect the way they were, and I wouldn't want to make it sweeter!)
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| Salted peanut rice krispie treats! |
These are excellent pre-gym snacks, and from experience, I can tell you that they make a pretty decent breakfast too. (It's been a hectic week). I believe these could be frozen successfully, but I got through them so quickly that they never made it to the freezer. I shared some with my colleague Jimbo, who pronounced them "freaking delicious". I tend to agree! The salty-sweet-crunchy-chocolatey combo is a total winner! Enjoy!
PS I have lots of different gym snacks up my sleeve now and am super pumped to be making more gym snacks! Watch this space.
Salted Peanut Rice Krispie Treats
Adapted from Donna Hay
Ingredients
3 cups puffed rice
1 cup salted peanuts
1/2 cup pepitas
1/4 cup chia seeds
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
100 grams milk chocolate
Method
Place the puffed rice, salted peanuts, pepitas and chia seeds in a mixing bowl and stir to combine.
Place the honey and peanut butter in a bowl and microwave in 30 second bursts, stirring each time, until warmed through and runny.
Add the peanut butter mixture to the dry ingredients and mix to combine.
Line a 20cm square tin with baking paper. Tip the mixture in and press down firmly. Place another piece of baking paper on top and weight down with a plate and some cans or jars.
Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or until firm.
Melt the chocolate in the microwave or in a double boiler.
Remove the slice from the fridge, and drizzle with the melted chocolate. Refrigerate again until firm.
Cut into bars to serve. Store in an airtight container in the fridge.
Makes one 20cm square
Have you made this recipe? Leave a comment below! Tag me on Instagram @sarahcooksblog and hashtag #sarahcooksblog
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