DIY snacks for the bike tour: Reach your destination one bite at a time

Regular readers will remember our experiment from last autumn, in which we presented our Reader Conny prepared for her first tour over 100 kilometres with good coaching have. As well as a friendly word or two, the support we received along the way also included refreshments. Even back then, we were asked what else there was to eat on the way besides the classics such as bananas and muesli bars. This inspired us to look a little deeper into our lunch box, because eating on the road is not just something that needs to be learnt, it also needs to be carefully selected.

Light and full-bodied

Of course, food intake when cycling first and foremost fulfils the task of energy intake. Pedalling burns around 250 to 650 kilocalories per hour, in addition to the body's basal metabolic rate. A professional cyclist sometimes manages over 1,000 calories in an hour, significantly more than can be absorbed in the same time. And because the digestive system can only draw a limited amount of energy from the food in the stomach and intestines, it makes more sense to eat small snacks regularly before and or after the tour instead of a huge meal - Schnabbulierchen, as they say in the Rhineland. Eating little and light food also prevents an excessive shift of blood from the muscles to the digestive organs as well as large fluctuations in insulin and blood sugar: A full belly doesn't go well with thighs that push it from left to right 160 times a minute!

Small treats on the go also help to keep morale high and provide a supply of minerals and other nutrients. Bananas, for example, provide a lot of potassium as well as sugar for the transmission of stimuli from the brain to the muscles, muesli bars with nuts provide carbohydrates and good fatty acids, but in the long run you want to eat something other than these classics. There is definitely nothing wrong with the classic sandwich, but the bread should be dark and the butter spread thinly. In general, animal fats should be used sparingly; although they contain a lot of fat, it is more strenuous for the body to metabolise them.

This also includes dairy products. Instead of sausage or cheese sandwiches, we used to serve Conny the good old Silberlinge. These are sweet waffles, the cavities of which are spread with jam, nut nougat cream and/or peanut butter and placed on top of each other with the coated side. They owe their name to the traditional packaging in aluminium foil with a special folding technique for tearing open with the mouth, but we do not use this for environmental reasons. For the savoury part and to compensate for the salt we had sweated out, we served simple jacket potatoes with skin and salt - all rather pragmatic. However, as touring cyclists and cycle travellers are usually also connoisseurs, we set ourselves the task of putting together snacks that would also provide a boost of energy, be easy to digest, simple to eat and small in portion, but also delicious and contain everything you need for cycling throughout the day.

Energy not equal to energy

If you want, you can take an energy bar for safety on a long, difficult tour, as competitive athletes like to do. This works super fast if you already feel a lack of sugar and a significant drop in performance. However, such super-fuels only work for a certain amount of time, after which the power drops all the more. The situation is similar with sweets. Their high calorie content is not a problem in this case, but rather the ripple effect. White flour products such as light-coloured pasta only have a slightly longer-lasting effect. Fruit also has an effect over a longer period of time. Potatoes and rice are the most easily digestible power foods, and they are also gluten-free; according to current findings, gluten is only really unhealthy for allergy sufferers (coeliac disease), but it seems to slow down the absorption of nutrients in many cases, which is exactly what you don't want during physical exertion.

As is so often the case, it's the right mix that brings the best results. Fast and slow-release carbohydrates, light unsaturated fats, salts and minerals, plant-based proteins with a delicious flavour - that's what we were looking for. In fact, we didn't have to get creative in the kitchen ourselves, because there is a lot of specialised literature available not only for cyclists, but also for adventurers, hikers and outdoor sports enthusiasts. We have leafed through it and picked out a few snacks that we thought were particularly tasty, original and nutritionally sensible.

Book tip 1 - Hungry for Adventures - Recipes for hiking, cycling and savouring the great outdoors

Jessica Lerchenmüller's cookbook not only contains snacks, but also 3-course dishes that can be cooked both indoors and outdoors, as well as drinks. The food blogger is also the photographer, which explains the appetising pictures. The recipes are somewhat more extensive than those of the competition.

Jessica Lerchenmüller | 28.00 euros | ISBN 978-395728-690-1 | knesebeck-verlag.de

BANANA BREAD

Ingredients

(for 1 loaf tin)

For the dough

• 3 ripe bananas
• 4 eggs (M)
• 1 tbsp coconut oil
• 50 ml maple syrup
• 130 g oat flour
• 100 g ground almonds
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 msp. ground bourbon vanilla
• Salt

For the topping

• 1 banana
• 1 tbsp ground almonds

Preheat the oven to 200 °C (top/bottom heat). Line a loaf tin (23 cm x 12 cm) with baking paper. Peel the bananas and cut into thirds. Crack the eggs into a blender, add the banana pieces with the oil and maple syrup and blend until creamy. In a bowl, mix the oat flour with the ground almonds, baking powder, vanilla and a pinch of salt. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix into a smooth batter, then pour into the loaf tin and smooth out. For the topping, peel the banana and cut in half lengthways. Place it round side down on the cake batter, press down lightly and garnish with ground almonds. Place the cake in a hot oven (centre) and bake for 35 to 40 minutes. Remove the baked banana bread from the oven, remove from the tin and leave to cool.

TIP: For a little variety, use ground hazelnuts instead of almonds and buckwheat flour instead of oat flour.

Serpentine biscuits

Ingredients

• 125 g oat flour
• 100 g millet flour
• 20 g linseed flour
• 70 g ground almonds
• 1 tsp baking powder, ½ tsp ground cinnamon, 70 ml maple syrup, 100 g coconut oil
• 2 eggs (M)
• 120 g jam of your choice (e.g. cherry jam)

Preheat the oven to 200 °C (top/bottom heat). Line a baking tray with baking paper. Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Mix the wet ingredients in a second bowl. Then add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and knead into a smooth dough. Place the dough on a baking tray. The long edge of the tray should be parallel to the work surface. Spread the top half of the dough evenly with jam, leaving 1.5 cm free at the edge. Then fold the pastry lengthways and seal the long edge well. Bake in a hot oven (centre) for 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown. Then remove from the oven and leave to cool for 10 minutes. While still warm, cut into 2.5 to 3 cm wide bars with a sharp knife.

Pumpkin seed bread

Ingredients

• 1 kg Hokkaido pumpkin
• 65 g butter (alternatively margarine)
• 60 g coconut blossom sugar
• 2 eggs (M)
• 1 cup of espresso
• 130 g Greek yoghurt
• 130 g buckwheat flour
• 50 g ground pumpkin seeds (alternatively whole pumpkin seeds)
• 40 g ground almonds
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon
• Salt
• 3 tbsp pumpkin seeds

Preheat the oven to 190 °C (top/bottom heat). Line a baking tray and a loaf tin (23 cm x 12 cm) with baking paper. Wash the pumpkin, cut in half, remove the seeds and cut into 1 cm wide wedges. Place the slices on the prepared baking tray and bake for 30 to 40 minutes until soft. Leave to cool, peel off the skin and finely puree the pumpkin using a blender. Melt the butter in a small pan over a low heat, place in a mixing bowl with the coconut blossom sugar and eggs and beat with a food processor until fluffy. Add 300 g pumpkin puree, the espresso and the Greek yoghurt and mix well. Add the buckwheat flour, ground pumpkin seeds and almonds, baking powder, cinnamon and a pinch of salt and mix well. If using whole pumpkin seeds, grind them using a blender. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf tin, sprinkle with pumpkin seeds and bake in a hot oven (centre) for 40 minutes, then remove and leave to cool.

TIP: When cycling, it is best to pack the pumpkin bread in a beeswax cloth, sandwich paper or reusable zip bags.

Book tip 2 - The touring cookbook - Meal prep for hiking, cycling, canoeing and more

The author is an outdoor fanatic in the best sense of the word, and her clear policy of avoiding unnatural ingredients and, where possible, rubbish when snacking on the go fits in perfectly with this. Both the simple basic recipes and the more exquisite ones are wholesome, delicious and long-lasting.

Mirjam Ophüls | 15,00 Euro | ISBN 9783742319975 | www.rivaverlag.de

Fruit jerky (red or yellow)

Ingredients

• 150 g blueberries
• 150 g raspberries
• 100 g apple (about 1 apple)

alternative (yellow)

• 150 g pear (about 1 large pear)
• 150 g apple (about 1 large apple)
• 100 g kiwi (approx. 1-2 kiwis)

Wash, sort and carefully pat dry the berries. Wash the apple, remove the core and cut into small pieces. Carefully puree the berries and apple in a tall container to create a homogeneous fruit purée. Cut two sheets of baking paper to the size of the dehydrating grids (an oven rack also works) so that there is a small overhang on the outer edges. If the grids have a hole in the centre, cut the hole out of the baking paper too. Line the grids with the baking paper blanks, press the excess edge slightly into the outer edge of the grid so that the paper forms a small crease at the top. Spread the fruit pulp evenly about 5 mm high on the lined grids. Then dry until the pulp has dried out and has a leathery consistency. The mixture can now be carefully removed from the baking paper and cut into strips. The fruit jerky will keep for about 4 weeks in airtight and waterproof packaging.

Date and cinnamon bar

Ingredients

• 350 g soft rolled oats
• 100 ml coconut oil
• 150 g date syrup
• 4 tbsp date puree
• 1 tsp cinnamon

Topping

• 200 g white chocolate coating

Place the rolled oats in a large bowl. Heat the coconut oil with 100 ml water in a small pan until the coconut oil melts. Add the date syrup, date puree and cinnamon and stir everything together thoroughly. Pour the oil-date mixture over the oats, mix thoroughly and leave to soak, covered, for about four hours. Preheat the oven to 220 °C (200 °C fan oven). Line a baking tin measuring approximately 30 × 40 cm with baking paper or grease thoroughly. Spread the swollen mixture evenly in the baking tin to a thickness of about 1.5 to 2 cm and press down firmly with your hands or a spoon. Bake for about 30 minutes, opening the oven from time to time to allow the moisture to escape.

Remove from the oven and cut into 10 to 12 bars. Leave them to cool briefly, turn them over and place them on a baking tray with a little space between them. Bake for another 20 minutes or so, opening the oven door occasionally to allow moisture to escape. Leave to dry in a lukewarm oven or dehydrator until the bars are firm. Melt the chocolate coating in a bain-marie and coat the bars with it. Leave the couverture to dry. As soon as the bars have cooled and dried completely, wrap them in airtight and waterproof packaging. They will keep for four weeks if well wrapped.

Book tip 3 - Power snacks to go

Inga Pfannenbecker is a journalist, author and qualified nutritionist. Her collection deals exclusively with snacks for on the go, including recipes for sushi, pastries and bars, as well as tutorials for packing, a little food science and the inclusion of the respective calorific value.

Inga Pfannebecker | 11.99 euros | ISBN 978-3-8338-8930-6 | shop.gu.de

Banana and peanut rolls

Ingredients

• 2 wholemeal tortillas (18 cm diameter; wheat patties)
• 50 g peanut butter (unsweetened)
• 2 medium-sized bananas
• 20 g dark chocolate
• 2 tsp hulled hemp seeds

Briefly fry the tortillas in a pan without fat according to the pack instructions, turning them over. Remove and leave to cool slightly. Spread the peanut butter on the tortillas. Peel the bananas and place one banana on the bottom third of each tortilla. Grate the chocolate over the top with a peeler. Sprinkle with hemp seeds. Roll up the tortillas from the bottom and cut into 3 to 4 cm wide pieces. Serve immediately or take away in a lunchbox.

Cauliflower and cheese waffles

Ingredients

• 400 g cauliflower florets
• 2 spring onions
• ½ bunch parsley
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 75 g Emmental cheese
• 2 eggs (M)
• 15 g flour
• 1 teaspoon ground psyllium husks
• Salt / Pepper
• 1 pinch of cayenne pepper
• Oil for the waffle iron

TIP: Always use fresh cauliflower florets! If the florets are frozen, they will contain too much water and make the waffles soggy.

Wash and drain the cauliflower florets. Trim and wash the spring onions and chop roughly. Wash the parsley, shake dry and pick off the leaves. Add both to the cauliflower. Then chop everything in a food processor until the cauliflower is about the size of a grain of rice. Heat the oil in a pan and sauté the cauliflower mixture for approx. 3 mins.

In the meantime, divide the cheese into coarse pieces and chop in a food chopper. Place the cauliflower mixture and cheese in a bowl. Add the eggs, flour, psyllium husks, ¼ tsp salt, pepper and cayenne pepper and mix well. Preheat the waffle iron and grease the baking surface with a thin layer of oil. Then place the cauliflower mixture in portions on the lower baking surface using an ice-cream scoop. Close the waffle iron and bake the waffle for 3 to 4 minutes until crispy and golden brown.

Remove and place on a wire rack. Continue in this way and bake a total of six small waffles. Serve immediately or pack in a lunch box to take away.

Book tip 4 - Food for winners - on the go

The second part of the "Food for Winners" series is more for ambitious cyclists and combines nutrition, cooking and sport in a scientific way. The principles of sports nutrition are explained over 50 pages before the recipes begin. But they are no less delicious. The folding technique for silver foil is also explained, for anyone who still has an old roll of aluminium foil at home.

Biju Thomas and Dr Allen Lim | 24.95 euros | ISBN 978-3-95590-020-5 | spomedis.de