Flapjack

I will be completely honest, I was drunk when baking these with my two good vegan friends, one vegetarian friend and lovely boyfriend.

I haven’t been a huge fan of flapjack since I was little, and loved it so much I ate far too much and haven’t fancied it much since. However, this was the perfect opportunity to tick this off the list as it was what my friends wanted and suuuuper simple to make after a few bottles of wine.

You will need…
200g soya butter
150g demerera sugar
4tbsps golden syrup
1tsp ground cinnamon
finely grated zest of 1 orange
400g jumbo oats (be sure to check the oats don’t have milk powder in)
100g raisins or sultanas (like I said we also added dried apricot, so I’m sure you could use any yummy dried fruit!)

1.Preheat the oven to 190oC. Grease a 20.5cm square baking tin and line with parchment paper
2.Melt the butter in a large pan and add the sugar, syrup, cinnamon and orange zest. Heat gently until the sugar dissolves.
3.Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the oats and raisins or sultanas. Press the mixture into the tin and bake for 17-20 minutes until lightly golden. Leave to cool before cutting into squares.

I was intrigued by the recipe as, not only have I never baked flapjack before, but this one was flavoured with orange zest and cinnamon, which definitely gave a lovely flavour to it, and which I think is important because you don’t want the flapjack to just be oats and sugar! Sadly, whether it be the recipe or (drunken) human error the flapjack didn’t come out wonderfully. It tasted and smelt lovely, but did not hold together at all to the point where it couldn’t even be cut into slices. I’d perhaps recommend more golden syrup next time to boost the syrup/oat or, as my vegan friend suggested, some flour maybe, rather than lots of sugar and syrup to bind it all.

My boyfriend Thom was the chosen non-vegan critic, and he seemed to enjoy it saying he thought they were ‘yummy but too crumbly’ which is well worth a note!

But as fun and easy as it was, I’m not all that sure I’d make this recipe again, mainly due to my lack of enthusiasm for flapjack!