From the sublime to the ridiculous

So here we are in october. The rain has been heavy and the wind gale force. What better time to spend a couple of days tearing around the Howgills? Well, aside from a half marathon that's what I'm preparing for. The Original Mountain Marathon 2012 to give it its full name. 36 hours of relentless navigating, running (or walking to be fair) in some of Britain's most beautiful scenery.

Aside from the mental stress of planning a route (we use a piece of string) the other big problem is energy levels. 13 hours of running, then walking, then stumbling over 2 days is pretty energy intensive. And as the rules mean we have to be entirely self-sufficient for the whole 2 days, energy to weight ratio is crucial. There are of course a lot of gels and bars you can buy, but they have two drawbacks: cost and taste. Spending over a quid on something that has the consistency of gritty putty and the flavour of effluent from a Hershey factory seems all wrong.

Hence my baking homemade energy bars on Saturday. I say energy bars, but let's be honest, these are nothing more than flapjacks with a chip on their corners. I borrowed the recipe from a cycling blog and used what I had in the cupboard.

Ingredients
2 handfuls of raisins 

1 handful of dried apricots

1 handful of dates

250g unsalted butter – a whole UK-size pack 

2 pints of oats, roughly measured in a glass
300g of honey or similar syrup (I added some molasses I had spare)
3 heaped tablespoons of brown sugar
2 heaped tablespoons of sunflower seeds
4 crushed digestive biscuits

The recipe is as simple as the ingredients, really.

1. Gently melt the butter in a microwave. This just makes it easier to get all the ingredients stirred together and sticking in one lump.

2. Put all the dry ingredients into a food processor and pulse until they are chopped up a bit. You don't want fine powder, but breaking everything down a bit makes the bars less likely to crumble or break, which is important if you're eating them on the go. 

3. Combine the melted butter, honey/treacle and dry ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir well

4. Take a baking tray, line it with greaseproof paper, and pour in the mix. Cook for 20ish minutes or so at 200 degrees Celsius - you're looking for a deep golden colour.

 5. Remove from oven (don’t worry if it is still a bit soft) and leave to cool on the side. Once it’s at room temperature, throw it in the fridge for a couple of hours. After that you can chop it into bars.

At the same as time as making these dense lumps of congealed calories I was also using some left over egg whites (the joys of an ice-cream maker). I only know of two ways to use these up, and with no ground almonds to hand, it was another meringuatang moment.

But this time I opted for safety - swapping rosewater for chocolate as flavouring.

Adding a combination of cocoa powder and finely grated plain chocolate to a standard meringue mix creates something that is very chocolaty but not too sweet. 

I don't think the meringues will ever make it into my rucsac for a mountain marathon, but the girls liked them.

But as to whether the energy bars work, well I'll let you know in a few weeks time.