Chocolate Quinoa Power Bars –

Yet another awesome guest Recipe from the award winning Dr. Ciara Kelly

 

The Chocolate Collection continues!!! And this is a pretty frickin’ exciting second recipe, let
me tell you. You guys know I’m a little obsessed with creating healthy snack recipes, and
until now my pride and joy recipe of my blog is my Chocolate Chickpea Power Bars – you
guys have been loving these as much as I do! But I’ve had quinoa on my list of ingredients to
play with for quite a while, and with some gorgeous Magic Mayan Creamy Cashew to create
with, I decided to try my hand at a healthy snack bar packed full of delicious cashew
chocolate goodness. Drooling yet? You should be. Thank you again to the lovely gang at
Magic Mayan for asking me to collaborate with them for this Chocolate series – can you tell
how much fun I’m having creating it?! Let’s get baking guys!

 

Chickpea protein Power Bar Recipe

 

Recipe

 

Ingredients

 

  • 1/2 tsp ground ginger
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 2 tsp whole chia seeds
  • 1 tbsp pumpkin seeds
  • 2 tbsp chopped cashews
  • 2 tbsp coconut oil, melted
  • 2 tbsp sweetener of choice (I used Meridian Foods Date Syrup)
  • 2 medium sized ripe bananas, mashed until liquid-like in consistency
  • 1/2 cup Quinoa, uncooked
  • 1 cup/100g quick-cook oats (I use Flahavan’s Progress Oatlets)
  • 50g good quality dark chocolate, chopped into tiny chunks (I used Magic Mayan
  • Creamy Cashew 73% Dark Chocolate)
  • Optional: 2 tbsp of Protein Powder (I used Nutristrength Vanilla Pea Protein!)

 

Chickpea Protein Power Snack Bar Recipe

 

Method

 

  1. Preheat the oven to 180C (fan oven), line a baking dish with tinfoil, and grease the
    tinfoil with a little melted coconut oil.
  2. Take a large mixing bowl, and add your oats, rinsed quinoa, cinnamon, ginger, baking
    powder, protein powder, seeds and cashews. Stir everything up using a big spoon so
    it’s well mixed.
  3. Leave the chocolate chips aside for the moment.
  4. In a smaller bowl, mash your bananas, and add the vanilla extract, sweetener and
    coconut oil, and stir.
  5. Add your wet ingredients into the larger bowl, and get some elbow action going! Mix
    it all up until all the dry ingredients are coated. Your texture should be 2/3 “dry” and
    1/3 “wet” if that makes sense – like a batter, basically.
  6. Finally, add the chocolate chips, and fold them into the batter.
  7. Scoop your mixture into your baking dish, and using the back of a spoon, spread it out
    evenly into each corner of the dish, flattening the top as you go.
  8. Transfer the dish into the oven when it’s ready, and bake for 25-30 minutes. Check at
    25 minutes by inserting a fork or toothpick into the centre of the bake – if it comes out
    pretty much clean, you’re all set!
  9. Remove from the oven, and allow the bars to cool for 15 minutes before slicing – and
    devouring!

 

 

Enjoy guys! I have been meaning to create a quinoa bar recipe for AGES, and something
about Autumn combined with the great opportunity to work with Darren and the Magic
Mayan gang felt like the right time to get on it! Plus who doesn’t love chocolate chips in their
snack bars?! And DARK chocolate at that…drool.

 

Tag me if you try these out –
@theirishbalance on Instagram/Twitter and on Facebook too! I can’t wait to see what you
think!

 

Ciara 🙂 x

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