we have oaty slices at home

it's a muesli bar recipe, but with more maths

we love the mother earth oaty slices in my household, specifically the gingerbread white chocolate flavour (which is only available in new zealand)

i only brought one box back to melbourne with me and quickly ran out

the only thing to do was to analyse the ingredients labels and recreate it at home - but there were important quantities missing (how much sugar? how much coconut?)

i went looking through the ingredients information of all the flavours i could find and discovered some flavours gave you information (like % desiccated coconut) and others stayed silent

it was like a big sudoku

solve for oaty slice

with a little logical reasoning you can make a good guess at the relative % weights of all the ingredients, which is a big step closer to making them at home

we also know the weight of a box of oaty slices, so we can multiply to get ingredient weights to make one batch of six

now all you have to do is mix it together and bake it off, right? not so fast

if you do this (and i did) you get a loose pile of crumbs that looks nothing like a dough and everything like the contents of the toaster tray

there must be something not listed - water

as far as i could tell, water generally doesn’t need to be listed as an ingredient in new zealand when it’s used in small quantities during the preparation

i retested, adding water until it just came together then baked the mixture off

it was pretty similar to the real deal (except for the shape)

here’s my recipe for oaty slices at home, with some creative liberties taken

bonus: make them whatever flavour you like! i have included suggestions below but i’d love to hear what you choose to include

yields a box of six

ingredients

74g rolled oats

10g whole wheat flour

12g honey or rice malt syrup

22g plain flour

22g butter, softened

29g brown sugar

19g desiccated coconut

2g (0.5 tsp) baking powder

1 tsp vegan egg replacer powder (i use mckenzie’s)

~50g your choice of finely chopped mix-ins, some ideas below:

• banana & pecan: 25g pecans, 25g dried bananas

• date & walnut: 20g dates, 30g walnuts

• seedy: 20g sunflower seeds, 20g pumpkin seeds, 10g chia seeds

• strawberry matcha: 30g cashews, 10g dried strawberries, 1 tsp matcha powder

• mango, ginger & turmeric: 25g dried mango, 25g ‘naked’ candied ginger, 0.5 tsp ground turmeric

• cherry ripe: 25g dried cherries (unsweetened if possible), 25g more coconut

0.25 tsp each ground spices of your choice (i love ginger)

pinch salt

2-3 tbsp water, as required

method

preheat the oven to 180°C

in a food processor, briefly pulse together the oats (74g), wholemeal flour (10g), honey (12g), plain flour (22g), butter (22g), brown sugar (29g), coconut (19g), baking powder (0.5 tsp), egg replacer (1 tsp), your spices, and a pinch of salt

add water, a spoon at a time until the mixture just comes together

stir in your mix-ins (50g)

turn the mixture out onto a lined baking tray, and press into a large rectangle about 2cm thick

slice into six bars and place evenly across the baking tray

bake for 15 minutes until just golden brown at the edges

let cool before moving, they’re fragile when warm!

store in an airtight container