On a recent rock climbing trip, I got to try Aussie Bites, delicious little cookie-muffins you can buy at Costco food warehouse. These snacks were created in the early 2000s by the founder of Best Express Foods Jesus Mendoza as a healthier version of the iconic Australian Anzac biscuit. I thoroughly enjoyed the Aussie Bites and I also liked the ingredient list: oats, quinoa, dried fruit, flax and chia seeds, coconut and more, so I spent the past week testing, combining, and tweaking copycat recipes on the internet to come up with my favorite ingredients, ratios, and a relatively streamlined process. The final recipe can be gluten free or can include sourdough discard. These breakfast bites are packed with flavor and texture, and two, three (or five) of them are great whether you’re home in your kitchen, commuting in your car, or out on a long hike.
Ingredient and Method Notes
I recommend you pre-cook the quinoa in this recipe. It’s probably easiest to make more than the recipe calls for and season the extra for a side dish at a later meal. Using volume measurements, bring 1 part quinoa and 2 parts water to a rolling boil. Cover the pan, shut off the heat, and let sit 20 minutes. Many Aussie Bites copycat recipes say you can use raw quinoa, but when I tried this, it made for a hard crackle in the bites during the first two days after baking. (After the third day, the raw quinoa did become soft.) Interestingly, the opposite happened when I made a batch of breakfast bites with cooked emmer wheat (farro) instead of quinoa. The wheat berries were soft the first day after baking, but became hard and awkward to chew beyond day two.
The dried fruits you choose will impact the sweetness of your breakfast bites quite a bit. Dates have a caramel-like sweetness. Dark raisins and currents are quite sweet, moreso than golden raisins. Some apricots are very tangy and others are mild and sweet. I recommend you adjust the brown sugar based on your dried fruit choices, ratios, and general sweetness preference.
If you’re making these breakfast bites without sourdough discard, which acts as a binder, you’ll want to food-process the ingredients a bit finer (see the pics after the recipe). Large pieces of dried fruit and seeds are fun to chew but make the bites more crumbly. In both versions, the chia seeds and flax seeds are also a binder and should be left to get gelatinous in the liquid ingredients for at least 10 minutes before you mix them into the dry ingredients.
If you don’t have a food processor, you can use a blender but you may have to work in parts and thoroughly mix everything in a bowl at the end. Flax seeds are best ground in a small spice grinder. If you don’t have any of these appliances, you could use storebought oat flour and flaxmeal, and chop the other ingredients by hand.
These bites bake up nicely in a 24-mini cupcake pan but you can also use a baking sheet. This works especially well if you have a cookie scoop to make uniform mounds. You can see these baking options in the photo gallery after the recipe.
Cookie style works too.
These energy dense and fiber-filled breakfast bites are Breadtopia’s take on the popular snack Aussie Bites. They’re absolutely delicious and packed with nutritious oats, quinoa, seeds, and dried fruit. Make them gluten free or use some sourdough discard in the batter.
Ingredients
Optional 100 grams sourdough discard (1/3 cup)
80 grams cooked quinoa (1/2 cup)
80 grams maple syrup or honey (1/4 cup)
50 grams brown sugar (1/4 cup)
35 grams flaxmeal (1/4 cup flax seeds, ground in spice grinder)
22 grams chia seeds (2 Tbsp)
1 tsp vanilla extract (4.2 grams)
100 grams oil, light olive or avocado (scant 1/2 cup)
175 grams rolled oats, to be processed into coarse oat flour (1 3/4 cups)
1 tsp ground cinnamon (2.6 grams)
1/4 tsp salt (1.5 grams)
1/4 tsp baking soda (1.25 grams)
100 grams dried fruit (~1 cup) 40 grams apricots, 40 grams dates, 20 grams raisins
15 grams unsweetened dried shredded coconut (1/4 cup)
30 grams pumpkin or sunflower seeds (1/4 cup)
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350°F and grease two mini muffin tins, preferably non-stick. You can also grease a large baking sheet or line it with parchment paper.
In a small bowl, combine the optional sourdough discard, cooked quinoa, maple syrup, brown sugar, flaxmeal, chia seeds, and vanilla extract and mix thoroughly. At this point you can add the oil to the top of the mixture and it won’t interfere with the gelatinization of the flax and chia. Set aside for about 10 minutes.
In a food processor with the metal blade, process the rolled oats, cinnamon, salt, and baking soda until you have a coarse flour.
Add the dried fruit, coconut, and sunflower/pumpkin seeds. Pulse a few times to break up the biggest pieces, then process until these additions are about the size of sunflower seeds or smaller.
Add the wet mixture to the ingredients in the food processor and pulse until combined. Transfer to a bowl and fill the wells of the mini muffin tin using a 1.5″ diameter cookie scoop. With damp fingertips, pat down the batter and add more if needed to reach the edge of each well. You can also make small mounds of batter on a baking sheet with the cookie scoop.
Bake for 12-14 minutes until the edges of the bites are golden brown.
Take the pans from the oven and let the bites cool in the tins before removing them.
Use a thin, not-serrated knife to separate each bite from the pan on two sides before you lift it out.
Store in a closed container for 4-5 days or freeze for long-term storage.
Photo Gallery