I was asked to pick my very favourite of the Muesli Bar Challenge recipes, and this is it. The Passionfruit Cheesecake Slice is the most popular recipe, but this one is my all time favourite.
When I was a kid, every block in suburban Brisbane had a backyard macadamia tree. Maca season meant finding a good rock with the right kind of hollow to stop the nut flying off, and a good hand sized rock for hitting them with.
The dessert version of these is easy, but the healthy lunchbox version is a little trickier. It is still easy enough, though, to be within the bounds of the Muesli Bar Challenge rule: easy enough for busy parents and even kids themselves to be bothered actually making, routinely, for daily school or work lunchboxes.
All these healthy ingredients make up for the fact that, unusually for my lunchbox baking recipes, I think these go better with white flour. They are still good with wholemeal, but there is something about fluffy lemony lightness that makes a midwinter day bright!
These are steamed muffins and they have a texture a bit like a steamed pudding. So they survive well in the rough and tumble of lunch boxes.
I worried a little about this week’s Muesli Bar Challenge. Scones are not that sweet – I often think their main attraction is as a vehicle for cream and jam. But I needn’t have worried. They didn’t make it to school. I dropped them off to the reviewers at the bus stop, and they were immediately unwrapped and devoured.
The jumping off point for this recipe was Stephanie Alexander’s adaption of Claudia Roden’s adaption from a Middle Eastern classic that uses whole boiled oranges.