Cacao Sesame Bars

Sense of Home Kitchen

This website has changed the way I cook.  Cooking used to be faster, now I stop several times to take photos and carefully jot down ingredients and their amounts, cooking times and temperatures.  However, this website has also forced me to stretch and learn, try recipes I would never have tried before, adapt them, and think outside my personal "cooking box".  Since I was in my mid-teens, 30 some odd years ago, I have experimented with recipes, but never have I tried such variety and created my own recipes like I am today, I owe that to this website.  I am grateful for what I have learned and the confidence I have gained.  The more I cook, the more methods I try, the more "risks" in recipes I am willing to take.  It is rare that a recipe adaptation completely fails.

I have been creating more recipes that are completely my own, or adapting a recipe to the point that they have become a new dish and could be called my own, though I still give credit for the source of my inspiration, it is only fair.  I love having all these recipes at my fingertips.  In the past I would make a recipe, adapt it, and then never be able to recreate it because I failed to write down the details of my adaptation.  For the most part that was all right because I usually don't want to make the same thing over and over, in general I like to move on to something new. For those times that I get a craving for the same dish, when I want to look back at what I have been cooking, or when I am asked to share a recipe with a friend, I am grateful for this site.

These sesame bars began with a desire to create a snack like the Bumble Bars we carry at our health food store.  I will not claim that these are as good, or even just the same, but I made these at home, they are lightly sweet and a nutritious snack.  I used raw cacao powder in them, rather than cocoa or chocolate, which is said to have more antioxidant flavonoids than any other food tested so far, including blueberries, red wine, and black and green teas (up to 4 times that of green tea).  I also used  unhulled sesame seeds, an excellent source of fiber, calcium and iron. Add in the raw honey and unsweetened coconut flakes and these are a high energy snack.

Cacao Sesame Bars
~Sense of Home Kitchen~

Parchment paper ensures that these bars will come right out of the pan and cleanup will be a snap.

Makes approximately 15 bars

1 1/2 cups unhulled sesame seeds
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut flakes or chips
1/4 cup raw cacao powder
1/4 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup honey
1/ 8 teaspoon sea salt

Preheat oven to 300° F.

Place the sesame seeds in a heavy skillet over medium-high heat and toast for a few minutes until seeds are lightly browned, stirring occasionally.

In a large bowl mix toasted sesame seeds, coconut, cacao, peanut butter, honey and salt.

Line a 9 x 9 inch baking dish with parchment paper.  Butter the paper and press seed mixture into pan with buttered fingers.  Place baking dish in preheated oven and bake for 25 minutes.  Let cool a few minutes, lift the parchment paper and bars out onto a cutting board and let rest until cool.  Cut and enjoy.


Sense of Home Kitchen / Recipes / Cookies and Bars