Gluten-free oat crunchies

Oat crunchies are a classical South African recipe, originally with a lot of sugar and butter like most homemade biscuits.  I have adapted the recipe to be gluten-free and even vegan. But you can substitute the ingredients and also use butter and flour.

To make these crunchies even more glamourous drizzle some dark chocolate over with a sprinkle of chopped nuts. I had some toasted hazelnuts left from my ice cream workshops so I just used that. I can imagine that flaked almonds, pecans, or even some toasted seeds will work.

What makes these crunchies gluten-free?

The recipe uses 1 cup of oats so use gluten-free if needed and 1 cup of cake flour. You could replace the flour with almond flour or gluten-free flour but I tried something for the first time which is cost-effective and nutritious. Sunflower seeds can be ground in a blender to a flour-like texture. It worked really well. I can imagine it might have a stronger taste but because I used cinnamon I could not taste the sunflower seeds.

How to make the recipe vegan?

The recipe does not contain eggs but butter, so just replace the butter with coconut oil. It makes it very crunchy and delicious. Also, use vegan dark chocolate.

 

Other similar recipes on my blog are Oat choc chip cookies

I buy most of my pantry ingredients,  like oats, bicarbonate of soda, honey, and sunflower seeds from Unwrappedco

Ingredients

1 cup rolled oats (gluten-free if you prefer)

1 cup ground sunflower seeds (but could also be replaced by almond flour or cake flour)

1/2 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup desiccated coconut

1/2 cup sunflower seeds

2tbs honey

125g coconut oil or butter

1/2 tsp bicarbonate soda

1tbsp water

1/4 tsp of salt

5 ml cinnamon

5ml vanilla extract

Method

Preheat the oven to 170′.

Add sunflower seeds to a blender and blend until it forms a flour texture.

Combine oats, sunflower flour, sugar, sunflower seeds, coconut, salt, and cinnamon in a bowl.

Place honey, and butter in a saucepan and melt over low heat. Mix the bicarbonate of soda with the water. Add to the honey mixture and stir to combine. Add to the oat mixture and mix well.

Press the mixture into a lightly greased 20cm x 30cm tin lined with baking paper.

Bake for 20 minutes until golden. Allow to cool in tin.

Cut into squares.

Melt dark chocolate and drizzle over crunchies. Sprinkle with nuts.

Cool in the fridge, chocolate will harden faster.

Keep in an airtight container.