A friend asked me the other day if I had a fail-safe recipe for flapjacks. This one has always worked for me and its toffee-like flavour is so more-ish that we usually scoff it the day it is made, regardless of the fact that it’s one of those “a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips” items.
If that makes you feel guilty, pack it when you next go mountain-climbing. This is the original energy bar. Or put a slice in your child’s lunch box and eat a virtuous salad yourself. But you’ll be missing out.
I added a grated eating apple to this recipe but you can leave it out without affecting its cookability (if that’s even a word). And you really do need to use butter, not marge.
Apple Flapjacks
Ingredients:
125g butter
125g Demerara sugar
5 tbsp golden syrup
225g porridge oats
1 tspn ground ginger
1 sharp eating apple, peeled, cored and thickly grated
Method:
Preheat oven to 190c/375F/Gas Mark 5. Grease a 20cm sandwich tin or line it with non-stick baking parchment.
Melt the butter in a large pan. Stir in the sugar and golden syrup until the sugar dissolves. Take the pan off the stove and mix in the oats, ground ginger and grated apple, if using.
Press the mixture evenly into the tin and bake for 20-30 minutes (check it after 20 but give it a bit longer if you’re using apple as it makes the mixture wetter). Cool for 15 minutes in the tin, then score into squares or wedges.
Allow the flapjack to cool completely before turning out of the tin and breaking into portions along the marked lines.
“Cook, cook, cook, cookability, that’s the beauty of gas.”
Gosh, yes, I’d forgotten that one. Almost up there with “do the shake ‘n’ vac and put the freshness back”.
. Hmm. No cream in this one, but it looks ‘naughty but nice’. By the way. What’s margarine 😉 ?
You are a woman after my own heart, Margaret. 🙂
These look and sound yummy.. I’ve been looking for an alternative to my usual cakes/cookies and this is perfect! I’ll make them as soon as I get some oats and maple syrup.. (possibly tomorrow..) And report back, of course! Thank you Linda!
Thanks Arax. Just a quick note: they do actually need golden syrup, rather than maple syrup. It’s to do with the holding-together of the finished flapjack. I think they’d be too crumbly with maple syrup.
Oh, thank you for that.. will buy that one tomorrow & get baking.. 🙂
What is ‘golden syrup’ if you are a yank, and not at all a baker?
Hello Chip. You can sometimes find Lyle’s Golden Syrup in British food shops in the US or in the international section of supermarkets. I think there’s a US brand called King Golden Syrup that may be easier to locate. I see one US recipe site suggests mixing light corn syrup and molasses in a two to one ratio but I haven’t tried this.
Any US friends got a better suggestion please?
Thanks Linda. With appropriate apologies to small British food shops over here, I found Lyle’s in a little shop in Washington called Amazon! Appreciate your time and recipes.
Excellent, glad you tracked it down one way or another! Thanks for the kind words. Let me know what you think if you make it? Best, Linda.
These look lush but I’ve only gone and given up sugar for Lent! Sob! (It was either that or booze or cheese…something had to give and it wasn’t going to be them!) But I bet the boys would love to make these.
You are so virtuous! Save the recipe ’til next month. 🙂
Great stuff Linda. Another variation of my cycling bars. Any excuse for a sugarfest.
You’ll be wearing the Yellow Jersey if you scoff these. 🙂
(That sounds rather nasty but you know what I mean.)
I know exactly what you mean. I made a big batch of flapjacks for cycling food. They only lasted a day. A day without any cycling.