Ideally, it shouldn’t be too difficult to prepare either – and while many of Sætre’s sweet hiking snacks need to rest for at least a day before going into the bag, they will keep for weeks.
– Nuts crystallized with salt are very simple and very good, he says.
He lightly shakes the nuts in the oven before letting them cook in the sugar brine just long enough for all the water to evaporate and for the sugar to form a crystallized layer around the nuts, but not long enough to caramelize. At the very end, he sprinkles in a little pinch of salt, which acts as little flavor bombs – and mixes it all together with good chocolate and dried fruit when it’s cooled.
– It’s easy to eat with cold fingers, you can almost eat it with mittens, says Sætre.
Snack bar
A little more elaborate is a soft nut bar made of finely chopped nuts, seeds and dried fruit, tossed in a mixture of apple juice and honey before being pressed tightly together in a loaf pan or cake and left to harden for a day. It is important that it is in such a form that the mass cannot spread outwards when compressed, Sætre specifies.
– Don’t make the shape too big or it will just flow out. And then it needs to be left at room temperature for a day so that everything can set, he says, and gives a tip about a fairly low-sugar muesli composition for a sweeter version:
– If you add a little melted white or light chocolate at the end, it also becomes stiffer, because the fat in the chocolate emulsifies with water.