Goji Berry Mango Spelt Breakfast Bars

One of the great things about living in Germany is the accessibility to spelt products. From cereal to pasta to flour to cookies, the stores are filled with spelt choices.

I used three spelt products to create this breakfast bar: whole wheat spelt flour, spelt oats and spelt flakes. 

I threw in some goji berries and dried mango but you can use your favorite dried fruit.

These are delicious, not too sweet and perfect for breakfast or a healthy snack. 

I did try to make them low fat as well by adding skim instead of full fat milk. As a result, the bars were a bit more crumbly than I would have liked. If you make them, you can up the fat ingredients to make them hold together better. 

However, when I finished cutting the bars, I swept the crumbs into a ziplock and later added them to yogurt for an additional breakfast treat.

I am submitting these bars to the Wholesome Wholegrain Cooking Spelt/Oats for Breakfast Challenge hosted by Heather over at Girl Chef.

Separately – Here is the Rumtopf update: It was incredibly dry here in the early part of the month. My MIL thinks that is the reason  the red and black currents in our yard did not come in this year. 

Luckily my brother in law’s mother had an abundance of them and brought over big buckets of black and white ones. After de-stemming the berries, I tossed them with the brown sugar.

I added the sugared berries to the strawberries already in the Rumtopf. Then topped off the dark rum to make sure the fruit was covered with the alcohol.

Ingredients:

• 1 + 1/2 cups whole wheat spelt flour
• 2 cups Spelt oats
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 stick (1/2 cup) butter softened
• 1/2 cup brown sugar plus some for sprinkling on top
• 1/4 cup agave syrup
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 2/3 cup skim milk
• 1 cup goji berries
• 1 cup dried mango
• 1 cup spelt flakes
• Brown sugar for sprinkling over the top

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Grease a 9″ x 11″ pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.
• Whisk together flour, oats baking powder and salt in a bowl and set aside.
• Cream together the butter and sugar.
• Add agave and vanilla and combine thoroughly.
• Add eggs one at a time.
• Add dry ingredients alternating with the skim milk until everything is combined.
• Stir in the dried fruit.
• Scrape the batter into the pan.
• Sprinkle the spelt flakes on top and then sprinkle brown sugar over the flakes.
• Bake for 35-40 minutes or until a knife inserted into the center comes out dry.
• Remove from oven and let cool completely before removing from pan and cutting into bars.