Most things sold as a hemp snack are confectionery with seeds on the outside. That is not an argument against them — it is an argument for knowing which ones, and for how easy the good version is to make.
Not a recipe — a set of proportions. Fill each column with whatever you have and it works every time. Makes about twelve.
Blitz the binder, stir everything together, press hard into a lined tin — harder than feels necessary, because bars fall apart when they are pressed politely — and chill for two hours before cutting. They keep a week in the fridge and three months in the freezer.
Hemp protein can take up to about a third of the dry bulk. Past that the bars turn dense and faintly bitter, which is the same ceiling that applies in baking.
The cheapest good snack in this whole world, and it takes four minutes.
No oil. Whole seed, not hulled — hulled seed burns before it toasts because there is no shell protecting it.
They pop faintly and smell nutty. That smell is the timer; colour tells you less than it does with nuts.
Onto a cold plate. A hot pan carries on cooking them, and burnt hemp seed is properly bitter rather than pleasantly dark.
Smoked paprika, cumin, chilli, a little maple that dries as it cools. Keep them in a jar somewhere dark.
Sugar per 100 g, for things typically found on a shelf. Read this as a category, not an accusation — some of these are meant to be treats and are honest about it.
“No refined sugar” on a date bar is true and not very informative — the body does not draw a sharp distinction, and a date-sweetened bar frequently carries more total sugar than a chocolate one. The useful move is to read the sugar line rather than the front of the wrapper, and then to enjoy whichever one you chose.
Some are food and some are sweets, and the seeds on top do not decide which. Turn it over and read the sugar per 100 g — that single number sorts the shelf faster than any claim on the front.
Almost always under-pressing. Line the tin, tip it in, then lean on it with the back of a spoon or the base of a glass until it looks compressed rather than tidy. Chilling properly before cutting does the rest.
Barely — it burns quickly because there is no shell. Thirty seconds in a warm pan to wake it up is fine; a proper toast is a job for whole seed.
Same idea, different seed. Hemp seed butter is softer, greener and milder than tahini, and it does not have tahini's bitterness — which makes it better on toast and less good in hummus.