It’s true. I love baking. There’s something very child-like but also maternal about it. It’s the sort of thing you want to do when you’re feeling sad or cold, dragging your feet around the house feeling a little lost. When you know someone else is feeling that way, there’s that like spark in your chest that says ‘I should bake something’. When you say it out loud, it’s extremely 1950’s but for me it’s definitely still a reality. It’s like giving someone a little piece of sunshine, impregnated with your time, effort, and love.
Unfortunately, and it breaks my heart to say this, but I don’t really like eating baking or sweets.
Unfortunately, and it breaks my heart to say this, but I don’t really like eating baking or sweets.
I’m very much a savoury girl through and through these days. In my early years of cooking I was a complete disciple of sugar. I spent hours in the little kitchen in the downstairs of my parents’ house, teaching myself everything I could about cookies, cakes, and pastry. I made Danishes, tarts, and madeleines until they were perfect. The first café kitchen I worked in, my job was to keep the cabinet and the dessert fridge full of sugary delights. Obviously I had to sample each item (scones and muffins hot from the oven of course). I couldn’t let a single Caramel Slice edge go to waste as I diligently cut huge trays into dainty little bars. I was constantly on a roller coaster from Date Scones to coffee to Humming Bird Cake and cream cheese icing. It’s only now that I realise I was a complete junky.
But this is one addiction where you can’t blame it all on the object of desire. Sweetness is not the enemy. Our bodies are hard wired to crave sweet foods as a survival mechanism. As hunter-gathers, fruits, sweet plants and honey were the energy mother load, and energy was what we needed. The more we were driven to finding these foods, the more likely we were to survive, thrive, and raise children. When we are talking survival of the fittest, having a sweet tooth made you one of the fittest. Now, however, energy is not what we need. We need nutrients, we need fibre, we need fresh, high vibrancy food. Sugar addiction is a massive detriment to health now that it is hidden in so many processed foods. The food industry uses it in the exact way that smoking companies use nicotine. It’s there to keep you wanting more, whether the product you’re eating is sweet or savoury.
Sweetness definitely has its place; a balance of sweet, salty and acid is the goal for every mouthful. That’s what we are always working to master with each dish, like a kid playing with a chemistry set – get the right quantities of each and boom! Mouth explodes. It’s the quantity of sugar that we consume which is throwing out our health and our attitude towards food. If you check the labels of the packaged foods on your supermarket shelves, you will find that almost every product contains sugar in some form or another. They may give it cute or scientific names but its still sugar. This sweet overdose has lead to a population that craves sugar in intense amounts. No longer satisfied with a spoonful of brown sugar on our porridge, we get more than that in a packet of salty chips. When I was in the throws of my sugar addiction, I didn’t think that what I was eating excessively sweet. It tasted normal to me. Now, if I eat anything with white or refined sugar, my mouth starts to water, my eyes clench shut, and I feel physically nauseous. The more we eat, the less we appreciate the taste but the more we crave it and become accustomed to that well-known, joyous sugar high.
Eating whole foods such as grains and good fats balances blood sugar and provides real energy and satiety, so that you aren’t always looking for that sugar high. I also credit bitter dark green leaves, like kale, spinach, silverbeet, rocket etc, for balancing my pallet. Having that variety of flavours in your diet helps you taste things for what they are. They also balance blood sugar and provide huge amounts of iron, fibre, and phytonutrients, but there's no need to brag. The sourer fruits like berries, plums, and citrus are also great transition foods. The sourness really brings out the sweetness through contrast, rather than layer upon layer of different forms of sugars, like we find in so many foil packages.
Eating whole foods such as grains and good fats balances blood sugar and provides real energy and satiety, so that you aren’t always looking for that sugar high. I also credit bitter dark green leaves, like kale, spinach, silverbeet, rocket etc, for balancing my pallet. Having that variety of flavours in your diet helps you taste things for what they are. They also balance blood sugar and provide huge amounts of iron, fibre, and phytonutrients, but there's no need to brag. The sourer fruits like berries, plums, and citrus are also great transition foods. The sourness really brings out the sweetness through contrast, rather than layer upon layer of different forms of sugars, like we find in so many foil packages.
But through all of that, the therapeutic mixing, sliding into the oven, waiting, wafts of toasty smells, and pulling out a product completely change from when it went in, gets me every time. I wanted to make something that wasn't just a sweet treat, something we could snack on at anytime of the day - and that would really intensify the sweet tanginess of the plums available at the moment. These bars are filled with oats, seeds, coconut, banana – for sweetness and binding – and cinnamon. The fat from the coconut and the cinnamon both work to balance out blood sugar levels and stimulate digestion. So these are great for a little pick-me-up treat for some long lasting energy, or a breakfast on the run.
Plum Crumble Bars
3 cups whole rolled oats
1 cup sunflower seeds
2 tbsp chia seeds
¼ sesame seeds
2 tbsp whole flax seed (1 tbsp if using ground)
1 very ripe banana
½ cup of coconut butter
3 tbsp raw honey
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp ground cloves
¼ cup water
8-10 Plums – Or any fruit that you prefer, or is in season.
2 tsp coconut sugar
Take aside 2 cup of oats and half of the sunflower seeds and pulse in the food processor to make a coarse flour. Add to a bowl with the remaining whole oats and seeds.
In a blender blitz the banana, coconut butter, honey, spices, and water until smooth. (If you cannot coconut butter you can use coconut oil and just add a little shredded coconut for texture).
Add the wet to the dry and combine. It will be a wet, chunky dough.
Press two thirds of the mixture into a small tin (any shape you like really), until you have a layer that covers the bottom.
This is the fun part, the fruit layer. I used a few different varieties of plum for my slice. Cut them in half, remove the stone, and place them cut side down haphazardly until they cover the base. You can use whatever fruit you like! Any stone fruit can be treated in the same way; you could add berries; if you want to use apples or pears, just slice thinly and layer across the base. Anything goes.
Once you’ve artistically arranged your chosen fruit, crumble over the remaining dough. You can do this as roughly as you like, but the more little peaks you have sticking up, the more little crispy bits you get.
Sprinkle with the coconut sugar and bake in a 180 degree oven for 35-40 minutes or until crispy and golden.
1 cup sunflower seeds
2 tbsp chia seeds
¼ sesame seeds
2 tbsp whole flax seed (1 tbsp if using ground)
1 very ripe banana
½ cup of coconut butter
3 tbsp raw honey
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp ground cloves
¼ cup water
8-10 Plums – Or any fruit that you prefer, or is in season.
2 tsp coconut sugar
Take aside 2 cup of oats and half of the sunflower seeds and pulse in the food processor to make a coarse flour. Add to a bowl with the remaining whole oats and seeds.
In a blender blitz the banana, coconut butter, honey, spices, and water until smooth. (If you cannot coconut butter you can use coconut oil and just add a little shredded coconut for texture).
Add the wet to the dry and combine. It will be a wet, chunky dough.
Press two thirds of the mixture into a small tin (any shape you like really), until you have a layer that covers the bottom.
This is the fun part, the fruit layer. I used a few different varieties of plum for my slice. Cut them in half, remove the stone, and place them cut side down haphazardly until they cover the base. You can use whatever fruit you like! Any stone fruit can be treated in the same way; you could add berries; if you want to use apples or pears, just slice thinly and layer across the base. Anything goes.
Once you’ve artistically arranged your chosen fruit, crumble over the remaining dough. You can do this as roughly as you like, but the more little peaks you have sticking up, the more little crispy bits you get.
Sprinkle with the coconut sugar and bake in a 180 degree oven for 35-40 minutes or until crispy and golden.
