The first time I made these energy bars I immediately showed the photo, certain that I would write the recipe in a few days. It was, again, one of those spontaneous recipes, tried without much thought, solely to recycle leftovers and remnants. Of fruit smoothie (the leftovers) and Easter colomba (the remnants).

I don’t know about you, but I always find myself with a fair amount of crumbs and pieces sticking to the oiled paper with colomba, not to mention certain chunks of icing, which I regularly set aside (not because I don’t like it but because it bothers my teeth 🤷‍♀️) and that always end up accumulating with the crumbs when there’s no Flavia around (now a rare thing, sob) to eat them instead of me.

Well, those remnants that day when I decided to recover the leftover fruit smoothie from the day before, they turned out to be very useful. I mixed everything together, added some oats and seeds, compacted everything with the back of a spoon, and got bars that were so good they… well, they make the store-bought ones look bad. 😃💪

Only then, I don’t remember if because I had forgotten to write down the weights of the ingredients or because I had (probably) lost the note on which I had written them, but the fact is that the colomba crumbs available at home had meanwhile run out, as well as the colombas for sale, to try to redo the recipe with the crumbs on super offer. Because right after Easter everyone competes to grab them, while when I arrive in the sales area, the only hole with empty pallets and dangling price tag… guess what? it’s the colomba’s, of course!

When I promise a recipe and it doesn’t come right away, you might think I’ve forgotten it, but no no, it’s not a forgetfulness. It’s just a lack of opportunity. Fortunately, with recurring holidays, the problem is solvable… just wait a year! 😄 And, magic, our beautiful colombas are back, with them the crumbs. 😃

And the post-Easter recycling recipe for the Light and Tasty column, here it is: recovered, weighed, eaten, and written!

Enjoy! 😀😋

〰〰〰

Difficulty: Easy
Cost: Cheap
Preparation time: 15 Minutes
Portions: 10 bars
Cooking methods: Oven
Cuisine: Italian
Seasonality: All seasons

Ingredients

4.9 oz apple and kiwi smoothie (equivalent to about half an apple + 1 small kiwi)
1.75 cups oat flakes
2.5 cups colomba (crumbs and remnants)
2.5 tbsps sesame seeds
2.5 tbsps sunflower or pumpkin seeds
3 tbsps almonds
2 tbsps grated coconut

Tools

Food processor
Cutter rectangular
Bowl

Steps

Retrieve from previously prepared recipe the apple and kiwi smoothie. Or remake it especially, even with different fruit, and possibly even without kefir (proven attempt and equally perfect result).
Put the smoothie in a bowl in which to add all the other ingredients one by one, starting with the oat flakes.
Mix them with the smoothie and let them soften for a while. Time is not categorical, a quarter of an hour, half an hour, an hour, it doesn’t make much difference.
Meanwhile, you can coarsely chop the almonds and toast the seeds.
After toasting the seeds (sesame and sunflower, while the previous time I used pumpkin seeds), I recommend letting them cool.
Pour everything into the bowl, including the coconut.
Add the colomba crumbs.
If the pieces are large, or if you want to use a slice of colomba because the crumbs available are not enough, you can specifically crumble it. 😃
Mix everything well, then compact the mixture inside a cookie cutter.
As usual, I use a simple rectangular cutter.
But if you’re more creative than me, you can also use other shapes, the important thing is that they are not too long or do not have points because then the bars could break, not containing binders (like fats or honey, the only binder here is the smoothie, combined with crumbs and oats). (*)
Bake in the oven at 350°F for 30 minutes.
Check that they do not roast too much, if necessary lower the temperature and extend the time. The bars should be well-cooked, even though they will hardly become crunchy. They will have the classic consistency of certain classic fruit energy bars.
I assure you they are delicious, word of my husband who loves them. 😀
I tried adding a teaspoon of honey to half the mixture, and I also tried adding some orange candied peels (the ones I make at home and have in stock).
We didn’t notice much difference in consistency. Maybe I should have added more honey, but then they would have become too sweet for our taste.
The presence of orange candied peels is purely a matter of personal taste. Husband approves, son does not, as he likes the orange aroma less. While I like both versions. 😃