morning tea

I admit I have got very lazy over the summer and sugar has really crept into our diets, so I have been trying to introduce the Mice Girls to more healthy snacks. Unfortunately Miss Mouse has never been a huge fan of seeds and nuts and her dried fruit adventures begin and end with apricots. I stupidly thought Baby Mouse was the same....however have found to my delight that she is just a garbage machine and will literally eat ANYTHING ( except cheese ?!?)
It is also a huge bug-bear of mine that it costs 46p for a pack of biscuits and £2.50 for a small bag of nuts..but hey ho, that's not going to change anytime soon so I guess you have to prioritise and make do with what limited grocery budget you do have..anyway, this morning the girls were being particularly rowdy so I took refuge in the kitchen and in my search for some healthy flapjacks found this recipe:

Ingredients
70 grams butter
2 teaspoons of vanilla essence
300 grams honey/golden syrup or 150 grams of each. You can add more for extra moistness
1/2 cup oat bran (not the cereal, this is found with the oats in the supermarket)
2 cups of oats
50 grams sunflower seeds (1/4 cup)
50 grams pumpkin seeds
 (1/4 cup) 90 grams almonds (about 1 cup, or mix it up with half-half hazelnuts and almonds)
200 grams dried fruit (I used glazed apricots, coconut, dates, sultanas)
Dash of cinnamon and ginger
2 spoonful of peanut butter

  Method
 1.Preheat oven to 180 C and grease a 18cm square tin.
 2.Melt butter, vanilla essence and honey/syrup in a small saucepan, bring to a simmer over a low heat.
3.Mix everything else together in a large bowl.
4.Pour hot butter mix into bowl, stir well.
 5.Spoon into prepared tin and bake for around 20 minutes, until golden on top.
 6.Once pulled out of the over, flatten mix with rolling pin to pack the mixture tightly, if not packed well enough it won’t stick together.
 Leave to cool for 10 minutes, then cut up while still warm.

Thanks Clever Muffin for these Starbucks inspired flapjacks