Success! This recipe has taken me over 6 months to perfect. I have finally mastered the texture that I was hoping to create and something the kiddies devour. A lot of work have gone in to these.
I really wanted a bar that was similar to store bought ones. A lot of the recipes I had tried all were a crunchy or powdery biscuit outer and very fiddly to make due to the temperamental pastry. This is a nice soft biscuit, almost muffin like outer with a fruity filling exactly like store bought bars. There will be honey taste to these due to the pastry.
You can vary the filling to use any fruit you like. Just keep in mind if your fruits are more watery than apples, you will need to cook the filling longer until a paste like consistency is achieved.
With the pastry off cuts I cut out shapes and bake. They make great biscuits!
This makes 8 adult size bars or 12 kiddie size bars (shown in picture) or 16-18 baby size bars.
Lets talk money!
The cost of 8 baby bars at the store is $3.89
The cost for 16 of my baby size bars is less than = $5.00
More of my copy cat snacks:
- Teeney Teddies
- Chocolate Teeny Teddies
- Chewy Peanut Bars (Jupiter Bar copy cat)
- Muesli Bites
- Apricot Bites
- Mini Fruit Balls
- Strawberry Roll Ups
- Strawberry Fruit Bars
Love this recipe? Subscribe to our daily recipe newsletter and never miss a newly posted recipe just as great as this one! Or join up to our monthly one for all the latest TRTLMT news. Subscribe to my newsletter here.
Fruit Filled Cereal Bars
- Yield: 12 1x
Ingredients
Filling
- 250g peeled and core removed apple chunks
- 8 dried pitted dates
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Pastry
- 60g butter, cubed
- 100g honey
- 50g golden syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
- 170g plain flour
- 65g wholemeal self raising flour
- 1 teaspooon bi carb soda
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Instructions
Pastry
- Place butter, honey, golden syrup and vanilla into a saucepan over medium heat. Stir until melted.
- Remove from heat.
- Add remaining pastry ingredients.
- Mix with a wooden spoon until combined.
- This will be a sticky, wet dough. It firms upon cooling however.
- Remove dough from bowl and place onto a silicone mat in a rectangle shape to cool for 30-45 minutes. Be careful as this will be hot.
Filling
- Meanwhile in a clean saucepan, add your filling ingredients.
- Cook over medium heat, storing occasionally until apples have softened. Add a drizzle of water if the pan is too dry.
- Add the filling to a food processor and process on high until desired puree consistency is achieved. I leave some texture to ours.
Assembly – refer to blog photo
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Line a baking tray with baking paper.
- Once dough is cooled, roll out into a thin rectangle about 2-3mm in thickness.
- Cut 12 small rectangles from dough (or however many depending on size of bars you are wanting).
- Place a little filling onto one rectangle.
- Bring both sides together, overlapping slightly to form a case around the filling.
- Place seam side down.
- Repeat for all rectangles. Leave room between each bar as they will grow in size during baking.
- Bake for 15-18 minutes. You will need to watch these as every oven varies. Some people have noted theirs took between 8-10 minutes so please keep an eye on them.
- Do not overcook these or you will have a hard biscuit pastry. You are wanting a soft, lightly golden crust to them.
Notes
- You may wish to use more honey instead of golden syrup.
Fruit Filled Cereal Bars – TMX Version
- Yield: 12 1x
Ingredients
Filling
- 250g peeled and core removed apple chunks
- 8 dried pitted dates
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Pastry
- 60g butter, cubed
- 100g honey
- 50g golden syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
- 170g plain flour
- 65g wholemeal self raising flour
- 1 teaspooon bi carb soda
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Instructions
Pastry
- Place butter, honey, golden syrup and vanilla into bowl.
- Melt at 100 degrees, speed 2 for 5 minutes.
- Add remaining pastry ingredients.
- Mix on speed 3 for 30 seconds.
- This will be a sticky, wet dough. It firms upon cooling however.
- Remove dough from bowl and place onto a silicone mat in a rectangle shape to cool for 30-45 minutes. Be careful as this will be hot.
Filling
- Meanwhile in a clean bowl, add your apples.
- Blitz on speed 8 for 5 seconds. Scrape down.
- Add remaining ingredients.
- Cook at 100 degrees, speed 2 for 8 minutes.
- Blitz on speed 9 until desired puree consistency is achieved. I leave some texture to ours.
Assembly – refer to blog photo
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Line a baking tray with baking paper.
- Once dough is cooled, roll out into a thin rectangle about 2-3mm in thickness.
- Cut 12 small rectangles from dough (or however many depending on size of bars you are wanting).
- Place a little filling onto one rectangle.
- Bring both sides together, overlapping slightly to form a case around the filling.
- Place seam side down.
- Repeat for all rectangles. Leave room between each bar as they will grow in size during baking.
- Bake for 15-18 minutes. You will need to watch these as every oven varies. Some people have noted theirs took between 8-10 minutes so please keep an eye on them.
- Do not overcook these or you will have a hard biscuit pastry. You are wanting a soft, lightly golden crust to them.
Notes
- You may wish to use more honey instead of golden syrup.
Cant wait to try these, my 17mth old loves the store ones!
How long would these keep for and how would you recommend storing them?
A week at most. I store in a single layer in an airtight container in the pantry. If its really hot I suggest the fridge. You can freeze and thaw.
Thanks so much Peta 🙂
These are fabulous! The kids loved them and they reminded me of Arnott’s Full O’Fruit – which I haven’t had in years. Thanks for another excellent recipe.
Omg! These are amazing! Where were you when my toddler was addicted to these and I’d spend a fortune haha!!
I used a combo of rice malt syrup and golden syrup and I didn’t have any wholemeal sr flour so just used white. They turned out perfectly.
I just pulled these out of the oven! I made 12 but I think next time I will try for about 18 as they were a little big for my little ones….Lets hope the taste test is a success once they cool down! (I tried the pastry & filling before I cooked them and they both tasted yum!)
Thanks, yet again, Peta! These bars are amazing! The flavours are perfectly balanced and we all enjoyed them. The pictures certainly helped me during the assembly too. My inexperience meant that I made them a little big for one sitting, but simply halved them once out of the oven. I will be making these again very soon!
Another awesome recipe. So easy to follow and taste amazing.
WOW- these are amazing!! Another awesome lunch box snack to make in next to no time, without the additives and preservatives. THANK YOU xxx
Thank you so much! These are delicious! I made them using pear instead of apple as my 3yo is allergic to apple. I love that I can make them now and not have to worry about what is in them!
Thank you for all your effort in effect this recipe! It has certainly paid off. These are a win! I found 15mins a little long in my oven, next time I’ll take them out at 10mins. Apple and date filling was great! Would love other filling ideas 🙂
These are brilliant. I just made mine gluten free (and made a complete balls-up of the recipe too)and they are still little soft, sweet pillows of goodness.
I subbed the plain flour for plain gluten free flour (woolworths brand)
I subbed the s/r wholemeal flour for plain gluten free flour
Subbed the bicarb for a teaspoon of baking powder.
added an egg to help it bind.
So I’m blaming baby brain here but I also changed the method slightly (I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing as I had a screaming, teething toddler in the kitchen).
Added the 170g of plain flour to the wet ingredients before I had melted the butter/golden syrup/honey etc. Luckily my butter was at room temp already so I was able to rescue it by combining on speed 6, then cooking for about 2-3 minutes 100C speed 3 – until it went all goey. I then added the dry ingredients + egg as per the method.
This is the first gluten free dough i have ever made that has held together and hasn’t cracked. I was able to roll it thinly, it was lovely and soft (and delicious) and didn’t break apart, and has cooked perfectly!
Thank you for the recipe 🙂
I was just going to ask if you can make it GF. I am using Aldi GF flour at the moment. I wonder if it would work. I might need to try it out and let you know how it goes.
My husband made these today for school lunches and I am so impressed! They are absolutely delicious. Thanks so much for sharing this recipe!
Cooked these over the weekend and they are brilliant worked perfectly and tasted even better – love that I can give my kids prunes and they gave no idea they are in there thanks Peta great recipe
These bars are just fantastic!! Delicious & very easy to make. I’ll never buy the packaged version (full of all sorts of numbers) again! Can’t wait to mix up the fruit to make different varieties.
Thanks Peta. These are so yummy and easy to make…they passed the 11 year old and her friend test!
Will be definately make these on a weekly basis…might even try different flavours.
These are delicious! I added extra golden syrup because I was a bit short of honey so they are a bit strong on the syrup flavour but otherwise yum! I also made tiny star bickies with the off cuts like I’d seen in another post of yours and they are yum too! I just cut my rectangle in half, filled and rolled then cut them into 14 pieces, seemed like less work than individual rectangles.
These are amazing and I love how easy the dough is to roll out and work with. My 2 year old told me that they are delicious 🙂
These are so delicious! My daughter is more of a bite size eater so I made a batch of bites and she loves them! Another winning recipe!
These really are easy to make (Thanks Peta for doing all the trials!)
They are delicious and my boys tell methey are better than the store bought ones – they love the softer consistency! Keep up the great work and …. THANKYOU!
Another great recipe! I was even more excited when my extremely fussy kids approved !
Thanks agin!
These are amazing..I have 2 kids with disabilities and are fussy eaters but willsit and eat these.. Thanks Peta, just perfect.
Made them today LOVE LOVE LOVE. Plan on making them regularly for lunch boxes. Thank you so much for perfecting them so we all can make 🙂
Thank you, Peta! This is my second batch and are absolutely delicious. The whole family enjoys them. Perfect for lunch boxes as no eggs or nuts. 🙂
Hi, thanks so much for the recipe. Just wondering how I would go about making them banana flavour as that’s what my son wants! Also I stored mine in an air tight container and they went soft? Any suggestions? Thanks 🙂
Banana is a tricky one as its goes a horrible brown colour. I find mixing two bananas and a few dates together with a drizzle of lemon juice helps it from going to dark brown. Or mixing banana and apple puree together.
These look so yummy! What else could I use instead of dates? I want to try these out tomorrow but have no dates 🙂
Just leave them out 🙂
Yummo, I’ve just made these while my little 17mth is sleeping and my 4yr old busy playing Lego. They look perfect in the oven and smell great I know my boys will love them. Cannot wait to try it. Love your work Peta I’m always trying new recipes of yours 🙂
These are so great! I refuse to buy the store-bought ones so this is a great way to give the kids something they really want without all the yucky bits. I have just made them for school lunch boxes and plan on freezing them. The taste test went well and the kids love them already!
Hi,
I made a batch of these last week and even though I keep them in a airtight container they went soft? Any ideas why?
Also if I wanted to make banana ones how long would I need to cook the banana and how much lemon juice would I need to add? Same if I wanted to do strawberrys?
These are super yummy Peta, well done!
Thank you
Trace
They will go soft if the filling was too wet or if they weren’t cooked longer enough. It takes a little practice to get it right in each oven.
Id mash a banana with a few drops of lemon. Id cook the strawberries for about 40 mins until jam like in consistency 🙂
I stopped buying these ages ago because of all the added rubbish they put in them but my kids think its Christmas all over again because I made them. My very Fussy ” all i eat is pasta with tomato sauce” 6 year old ate TWO , so WINNING!!! Thanks for a great recipe , hope you dont mind but I shared your recipe link with a few other Mummy friends.
i made these on the weekend and my fruit bar obsessed 6yo son said, “Don’t buy the shop ones anymore, these are better!” They were beautiful, however, they were overcooked at 9 minutes but I think the fillling was too wet also, and they were a sloppy sticky mess the next day. Would I cook the filling a bit longer in the Thermomix if its too wet. And maybe for my oven would a lower temperature work better?
Hi am wanting to make these bars, my kids love them, just wondering what I could use to cool pastry on (I don’t have a silicon mat & am in 1st week of having thermi, so a little frazzled lol)
Thanks
Hi there,
I’ve never made my own pastry so my first attempt was abit of a disaster!! The pastry was just coming apart… I did replace the honey and syrup with 90g of rice malt syrup. Do you think this has anything to do with it? I would really like to master this recipe so any advice would be appreciated!! x
I have read a few people have issue when using RMS. Anytime you swap something or make a change it will alter the recipe. We dont use RMS so am unable to help further sorry. I will report back if I find a solution 🙂
Big thumbs up from my 3 year old daughter!
Will try with less sugar (Honey & Golden Syrup next time, Maybe try Rice malt syrup)
So much better than buying them. Thank you
Wow!! These are amazing. My 14 month old is currently eating one. Always so exciting when I make something he will eat 😂 thank you so much for sharing. I followed the recipe exactly and they were perfect.
What a fantastic recipe! I made these tonight for the first time; my 2 year old approves. I made a filling of apples, strawberries and blueberries as my son doesn’t like dates. They were absolutely perfect. Well done with this recipe, I will be making them frequently. Thank you 🙂