Two Chinese-style Candies- Sesame Seeds Candy (芝蔴糖), and a Chinese Nougat (牛軋糖)

Here are two more very traditional Chinese-style snacks.  Even though each carries the name of candy, they are both well qualified to serve as Energy Bars in a busy life, since there are more nuts and seeds than sugar in the ingredients.  BTW, they are pretty easy to make, in case you're wondering, if you're equipped with a non-stick pan and the parchment paper.  Even cleaning up afterwards is pretty straightforward, by soaking the utensils in room-temperature water for a while, for the hardened sugar to dissolve and fall off.

I. Sesame Seeds Candy (芝蔴糖)

1. Get roasted, unsalted sesame seeds (1 cup+), pumpkin seeds (1 cup+), and sunflower seeds (4 cups+, ~1 pound).  For raw seeds, place the seeds in a flat non-stick pan, turn on low heat, cook till fragrant (lightly golden, but not brown).  
2. Get a 500-gram jar of malt sugar or maltose (麥芽糖) from a Chinese market.  Let the jar warm up under the sun or by a heated pot while cooking, for an hour or so.  Note- Malt sugar is hard and sticky under room temperature, hence difficult to scoop out. Place the container in a pot of hot water for 15-20 minutes (bring the water to hissing, but not boiling yet; place a small ceramic plate in the pot to shield the plastic container from the bottom of the pot).  We refrain from using Microwave to heat up the malt sugar (not sure if the plastic container is microwave-safe). 
3. Place a non-stick frying pan on low heat, scoop half a jar of the malt sugar (~250g) into the pan.  Add 1/4 cup of water, and 1/4 cup of sugar (optional), cook until the malt sugar turns into liquid form (stir and mix evenly).  Add the roasted, unsalted seeds into the pan (i.e., 1 cup of sesame seeds, 1 cup of pumpkin seeds, and 4 cups of sunflower seeds).  Stir and mix evenly with the malt sugar mix.   
4. Turn off heat.  Cover your cutting board or kneading board with a piece of parchment paper (i.e., paper coated with silicone).  Pour the seeds mix on top of the parchment paper.  Place another piece of parchment paper on top of the still hot seeds mix, and press the mix down evenly with a rolling pin or with both hands.  Use one hand as guard to shape each of the four edges of the mix, while pressing down from the top along the edge (to form a rectangle with ~1/2" thickness, see Item II below for a picture).   Note- Wax paper is NOT suitable here, since the wax coating on the paper might be melted under the residual heat.  Also the wax paper is not really non-stick, whereas parchment paper is non-stick, and oven safe.
5. Let  the well-formed rectangle cool completely.  Cut the rectangle into your favorite size, and serve.  Here is a picture of the finished product.  Note- Let the pieces air-dry first, then store in single layer (stacking up without parchment paper in between may make the pieces stick together again).  
   

II. A Chinese Nougat- Milk Candy with Nuts (牛軋糖)

1. Get roasted, unsalted nuts (either 1 3/4 cups of peanuts, or 1 3/4 cups of mixed pine nuts, walnuts, almonds, cashews; ~150g/cup).  For raw nuts, place the nuts in a flat non-stick pan, turn on low heat, cook till fragrant (lightly golden, but not brown.  All nuts should be cut into the size of a small-to-medium-sized peanut (or half of a large-to-jumbo peanut).  Note- To roast peanuts: Preheat oven to 350-deg-F.  Spread 1 3/4 cups of blanched peanuts (without skin), or regular peanuts (with skin) on a flat baking pan and bake for 18-20 minutes (20-25 minutes if roasting in a cast-iron skillet, as the skillet heats up slower and the results better).  Stir peanuts thoroughly at the halfway point.  For regular peanuts (with skin), place the roasted (and cooled-down) peanuts between your hands and rub the skin off, as if you are rubbing your hands on a cold day.  If you double the amount of peanuts, stir and add half of the time used up to this point (i.e., half of 18-20 minutes for a regular pan, or half of 20-25 minutes for a cast-iron skillet). Let peanuts cool down before use or tasting (won't be crunchy until thoroughly cooled down).
2. Place a non-stick frying pan on low heat, add 2 Tbsp of vegetable oil to grease the pan.  Add 5 cups of fresh miniature marshmallows into the pan (~50g/cup). Stir until the marshmallows turn into a glob of white cloud.  Add 1 1/2 cups of powdered milk into the pan (~100g/cup).  Stir and mix evenly.  Add the 1 3/4 cups of roasted, unsalted nuts (~150g/cup, from Step 1 above), and (optionally) 1 cup of dried cranberry (~150g/cup) into the pan.  Stir and mix evenly with the melted marshmallows (using a pair of wooden or silicone spatulas).  Note- Fresh marshmallows make "not-too-hard" nougat.  Marshmallows left unused for a while (after its expiration date, or over 6-9 months, even in sealed bags) dry out a bit and make the nougat harder.
   
3. Turn off heat.  Cover your cutting board or kneading board with a piece of parchment paper (i.e., paper coated with silicone).  Pour the still-hot nuts or peanuts mix on top of the parchment paper.  Place another piece of parchment paper on top of the nuts mix.  Use a rolling pin or another cutting board to flatten the surface down to ~1/2 thickness.  Cut off irregular parts and patch up to create a rectangle with well-formed edges.  Use one hand as guard to shape each of the four edges of the mix, while pressing down from the top along the edge (to form a rectangle with ~1/2" thickness, see picture to the right).   Note- Wax paper is NOT suitable here, since the wax coating on the paper might be melted under the residual heat.  Also the wax paper is not really non-stick, whereas parchment paper is non-stick, and oven safe.
4. Let  the well-formed rectangle cool completely.  Cut the rectangle into your favorite size, and serve.  Here is a picture with two versions of the finished product.  The left-hand-side is the version with pine nuts, walnuts, almonds, and cashews (but no cranberries; and the pieces were tossed in milk powder).  The right side shows the version with roasted peanuts and cranberries. To store the pieces, use parchment paper in between layers, as the pieces are still very sticky.  Might be worth the efforts to wrap the pieces in clear cellophane caramel wrappers (available from online sources, such as this site).  Note- Tossing the pieces in small amount of milk powder can make the pieces less sticky.