Apple and pear anzac tart

Pastry dough

1 ½ cups spelt flour

125g cold butter, diced

1 tbsp rapadura sugar or another sugar

1 egg yolk (reserve eggwhite for the crumble)

Couple of pinches of salt

Ice cold water

Fruit filling

3 apple and 3 pears, peeled cored and 1 cm dice

1 tbsp rapadura or other sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp cinnamon

Optional 1 tbsp calvados

1 tbsp of corn flour

Crumble

½ cup oats

¼ cup of desiccated coconut

1 tbsp rapadura or another sugar

30g cold butter, finely diced

1 egg white

To make the pastry

In a food processor pulse the flour, salt and sugar, then add egg yolk, pulse again, add a tbsp. of iced water at a time, pulse until the dough comes together. Take the dough out and knead a couple of times to get the dough together, wrap up and let it rest in the fridge for 20 minutes.

When the dough has rested roll out between 2 pieces of baking paper. Roll out to a circle big enough to cover to tart tin (about 30 cm diameter) it should be nice and thin about 2-3mm. Take off the top piece of paper and have your hand underneath and then quickly turn it over onto your tin. Then peel off the paper and press your dough in. You should have a little dough leftover that you can use in your crumble topping. Put back in the fridge to rest for 10 minutes.

Preheat oven to 160 fan forced or 180 c normal. Blind bake for 15 minutes using uncooked rice/chickpeas/blind baking beads on top of baking paper. When cooked take off the paper and weights and bake a further 1-2 minutes to dry it out.

For the fruit cook your fruit in a pot with the rapadura, vanilla, cinnamon and calvados (if using) simmer for 7-10 minutes or until soft. When cooked sprinkle over cornflour while stirring, this will thicken up the juices in the pot and help stop your filling leaking too much into the pastry. Add a little more cornflour if your fruit very extra juicy!

For the crumble mix

Stir together the oats, coconut and sugar and using your fingers squish through the butter and any leftover pastry, leave some little chunks. Then stir through your egg white.

Fill your pastry shell with the cooked fruit and then dot over the crumble mix and bake for 20 minutes at 160 c fan forced or 180c normal. Serve with ice cream or cream, hot or cold.

Chocolate chip muesli bars with seeds and goji berries

Ingredients

1 cup of rolled oats

1 cup of puffed rice

¼ cup of desiccated coconut

¼ cup of sunflower seeds

¼ cup of pumpkin seeds

¼ cup of goji berries

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 tbsp honey

2 eggs

1-2 tbsp chocolate chips to press down on the top

Method

150 c fan forced or 160c normal oven

Line a 20 x 20 cm cake tin. A really good way to do this is to dampen and crumple up the baking paper, makes it easier to line your tin.

In a small bowl add your eggs, vanilla, honey and goji berries, whisk together. This helps rehydrate the goji berries a little.

I briefly blitzed the sunflower and pumpkin seeds, but you can leave them whole if you wanted. They were still chunky though, not crumbs J

In another bowl add your rolled oats, puffed rice, seeds and coconut.

Pour your egg mix into the oat mix and combine.

Press firmly into your tin and top with optional chocolate chips. Press them down into the mix.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, should be firm to the touch. 

Leave in the tin for 5 minutes then lift out and cut in half and then cut into 12 bars. You can do squares or smaller ones, whatever you want to do. You can have these in the fridge but I think the texture is better left at room temperature.

Oaty breakfast muffins

Makes 12

Ingredients

3 cups rolled oats

¼ cup rapadura or other granulated sugar

2 tsp baking powder

3 eggs

125g butter, melted

1 cup unsweetened applesauce or I used 2 blitz bananas

1 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla

Top with

Cranberries and pistachios

Blueberries and shredded coconut

Chocolate chips and almonds

Blueberry and chocolate chip

Raspberry and chocolate chip

Method

Preheat oven to 190°C/170°C fan forced

Grease muffin tin really well or lined with paper cases.

In a large mixing bowl, combine rolled oats, brown sugar and baking powder. Set aside.

In another mixing bowl, combine eggs, applesauce/banana, milk and vanilla and whisk thoroughly.

Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and mix.

Scoop batter into prepared muffin tin. Put your topping on.

Bake at for 30-35 minutes

Serve as an on the go breakfast, you could serve with some greek yoghurt too if you wanted, or warmed with ice cream for a dessert

These can also be frozen and taken out when needed.

Mango and apple bircher muesli

Bircher is great to make when you are on the go in the morning, and you can make so many variations and use whatever you have on hand!

This one is lovely when you come into beautiful mango season!

Ingredients

1/3 cup of oats

½ cup of natural yoghurt

½ an apple, grated or small dice

1 tbsp of chopped walnuts or other nut or seed

Optional ¼ tsp ground cinnamon.

1 mango cheek, diced

Method

Mix the oats, yoghurt, cinnamon and walnut in a container and leave overnight in the fridge to soak. Add your mango on top when you serve and an optional drizzle of honey. Of course you can just add the mango with your oats if you wanted when you put it in the fridge.

Cranachan

If you saw SBS last night it was "Eat well: Why most food labels are wrong about calories"

Did you see it?
Well...they had this cranachan on there, its a traditional scottish dessert. In modern times it is usually made from a mixture of whipped cream, whisky, honey and fresh raspberries, with toasted oatmeal soaked overnight in a little bit of whisky. Aye!

Well you may know my last name Farquharson is Scottish so my ears and eyes perked up when this was mentioned and I was like "omg I have to make that, it looks like all kinds of deliciousness right there! "

I made it tonight and had it for dessert, I thought it was too good not to share and you guys have to make it!
I also thought this would be a fabulous breakfast!
Anyhoo...this is what I came up with!
You could drop the oats and just use flaked almonds and flaked coconut or other nuts and seeds and follow the recipe the same, you could also not use cream and just use yoghurt:)

Cranachan
Serves 4
100g (1 cup) rolled oats
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp honey 

Melt the honey and butter in a pan on a low heat, add the oats and stir until the oats are golden brown and toasted, careful not to burn them, set aside to cool

150ml cream (whipping cream)
½ cup of greek yoghurt or other plain yoghurt
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp vanilla extract (or some whiskey)

Whip cream, vanilla (whiskey if using) and honey together until stiff, watch out it doesn’t turn to butter! Then fold in yoghurt until combined.

250g fruit- you could use pear, banana, passionfruit, kiwifruit etc….
I have used 125g raspberries and 125g strawberries, chop the strawberries up.
To assemble you can use whatever you choose, like a glass or dessert bowl. Put in some fruit in each glass, then oats, then cream, then repeat with fruit, then oats and cream on top. If you have any left have the top layer with some oats and fruit.

Pear & strawberry crumble

Serves 6

Pear and strawberry with a sprinkle of optional chocolate chips topped with an oat and date crumble. The only sweetness comes from the fruit and dates (and chocolate if using)

Ingredients

4 pears, peeled, cored and 2cm dice (you could also use apples)

1 x 250g punnet of strawberries, hulled and cut in ½ or into 3 if really big

1/3 cup of chocolate chips (optional)

½ cup of spelt flour or gluten free flour

½ cup of oats

5 medjool dates, pitted

50g cold butter, small dice

Method

Preheat oven to 190c or 170c fan forced

Grease an oven proof dish with butter.

Blitz together your flour and dates until fine and put into a bowl. To that add your butter and using your fingertips blend the butter through the flour and date mix until it resembles biggish breadcrumbs, you still want to see some chunks of butter. Then add your oats and mix them through. Place your fruit and chocolate chips if using in your baking dish and sprinkle the crumble mix over evenly- bake for 30 minutes or until crumble is golden brown and the pears are tender. Check your crumble after 20 minutes and make sure it’s not getting too brown, cover with lid or foil if it is.

 Serve with double cream/ice cream/custard/whipped cream.

Stir fried oats with apple, sultanas and cinnamon

Serves 2

Ingredients

1 cup of rolled oats

1 egg

2 tbsp coconut flakes or shredded coconut

2 tbsp slivered or flaked almonds

2 tbsp sultanas

½ tsp ground cinnamon

½ cup of water or milk

1 apple, cored and cut into 8 wedges

2 tbsp coconut cream (opt) for the topping

Honey or maple to taste for the topping

Method
Mix oats together with the egg, set aside.

In a pan with some butter fry your apple wedges until golden brown and set aside. In the same pan, add more butter if needed and add your coconut, almonds, cinnamon and oat mix. Stir fry until golden brown and nice and toasted, then add your milk and sultanas. Keep stirring until there is no more liquid, about 1 minute. Serve up in 2 bowls and top with your apple, coconut cream and honey.

Chocolate, oat and seed clusters

Ingredients

2 cups of oats

½ cup shredded coconut

½ cup of chopped pumpkin seeds

½ cup of flaxseeds

½ cup of sesame seeds

¼ cup of chia seeds

1/3 cup of honey or maple

½ cup of coconut oil or you can use light olive oil or a mix of the 2

2-3 tbsp cacao powder

Method

Mix altogether and spread out on a lined tray about 1 cm thick, pack down. Bake at 140c for about 1 hour. It will still be crumbly when you take it out but when it cools it firms up. If you find it’s not all crisp after cooling you can put in back in the oven, I found some of the middle wasn’t done when it cooled as it was thicker so I took the outside bits that were crispy and put in a container and then put the rest back in for 10 minutes. Serve in big pieces as a snack or break up a little more and have for breakfast with milk, yoghurt and berries/banana. Store in an airtight container

Apricot anzac squares

Makes 16 squares

Would be great warmed up for breakfast with some yoghurt and berries, or in a lunch box.

Variations swap the apricots for dried berries/sultanas, sprinkle with chocolate chips

Ingredients

1 ½ cups of desiccated coconut

1 ½ cups of rolled oats

1 tsp baking powder

2 eggs

1 cup approx(140g) of dried turkish apricots, finely diced

100g butter or coconut oil

¼ cup of honey

Method

Preheat oven to 180c

Line a 20 x 20cm cake tin with baking paper

Melt butter and honey together. Add butter mix to all the other ingredients and mix until well combined. Press firmly into your tin and bake for 12-15 minutes, should be golden brown on top. When cool cut into squares, Store in an airtight container.

Chocolate chip muesli bars

Makes 12 bars-

You can leave out the oats and use ½ coconut and ½ nuts and seeds

Ingredients

1 cup of oats

1 cup shredded coconut

1 cup mixed nuts and seeds

2 tbsp each of honey and coconut oil, melted

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg

Method

Preheat oven to 180C

In a large bowl place your oats. Briefly blitz your coconut, nuts and seeds until fairly fine, add to your oats, and then add your melted coconut oil, honey and vanilla. Add your egg and mix well. Press into a lined 20x20cm cake tin and then sprinkle over ¼ or so of choc chips, press them down and then bake for 12 minutes. Take out and leave for 10 minutes and then lift out and cut into bars or squares. Keep in an airtight container on the bench.

Banana choconut porridge

Serves 2

½ cup of wheat free oats, this is found at Woolworths in the health section ( see note below)


1 banana, mashed, you can leave some of the banana to slice as a garnish

1.5 tbsp your favourite nut butter, I use ABC spread

1 T raw cacao powder

1 cup your favourite milk, almond, oat, almond, coconut, hemp, cows milk

Serve with rice malt syrup, honey or maple syrup if you like.



Method

Put everything in a pot except the syrup and simmer for 4-5 minutes until thickened, and oats are cooked. Serve with banana slices and syrup of your choice.

Note:

Do oats contain gluten?

Oats naturally contain a type of gluten called Avenin that is different to the type of gluten you find in wheat, rye, barley and triticale.

Now if you talk to the Coeliac Society of Australia, they say about 4 in 5 people with Coeliac Disease can tolerate oats. We say the easiest thing to do is read the Coeliac Society position statement on oats and seek medical advice on whether this applies to you.

If you’re lucky enough to be able to tolerate the gluten found in oats, the tricky bit is finding oats that haven’t been contaminated by wheat or other grains. Often, all the stuff is grown together at the same farm, processed by the same equipment and transported by the same trucks!

Freedom Foods Oats are tested to ensure that gluten from wheat is not detected (ie., they are non contaminated).