For the past year and possibly a bit longer (I cannot confidently remember), I’ve been baking and consuming home-made flapjacks on a regular basis. I eat them at work each day but bake them primarily to assist my energy levels when out hiking at the weekends.

It is with thanks to Dave that I came across a recipe from MBR.

However, I’ve made my own amendments to suit my shopping habits, which you’ll find below.

Basically, I do the majority of my food shopping in the budget supermarkets (Aldi and Lidl). I do  not like heading to a larger store for only one or two items. They tend to be more expensive, I often end up buying extras (from the bakery) to further justify the trip and, in my experience, items like chopped dates and flax seeds can be hard to fine.

100g Coconut Oil
100g Honey
200g Oats
80g Sultanas or Raisins
50g Ground Almonds
45g Cranberries (when I see them in Lidl)
20g Pumpkin Seeds*
25g Sunflower Seeds*

*I’ve only ever seen these in Lidl. They may be in Aldi as well and I’ve just not seen them.

I normally start by combing the coconut oil and honey. Living in a cold flat, I find the oil morphs in to a spoon-bending solid inside the jar and, in order to revert it in to a liquid, I usually leave it to sit in a pan of warm water. I don’t own a microwave but I imagine one could also be used, with care.

While that’s happening, I’ll weight out each of the dry ingredients. This recipe is really easy because these all go in to one bowl, while the oil and honey merge together in a saucepan.

I’ll also prepare my baking tin, which is 8in (or 200mm) square, with a removable base. I spray the full interior with Frylight coconut oil and line only the base with baking paper.

Dry ingredients need to be mixed thoroughly.

Once that’s done, I empty the dry ingredients in to the warm saucepan and begin to mix. At the same time, I’ll also begin to preheat my halogen oven*.

*It’s probably worth me mentioning that I’m using a halogen oven… A lidded glass bowl with a heating element in the top. If you’re using a larger and more conventional oven, it may be wise to preheat your oven at the very beginning.

This recipe calls for a temperature of 150°C. But, again; as I’m using a halogen oven, I reduce this to 130°C as I don’t like my flapjacks to be too hard or overcooked.

Before pouring the new mix in to the cake tin, I will stir it thoroughly until the contents is beginning to hold together and leaving less behind.

I like to use a silicone spatula, which I bought from Ikea a few years ago. I’ve found that by spraying it with Frylight on each side, the oats and seeds will not stick. It’s also easier, I think, to use this when pressing down on the mixture, instead of a rounded spoon.

I’ll then bake the flapjacks for thirty-minutes. Sometimes, I extend this. MBR’s recipe states only twenty-five minutes, which may be fine in a normal oven. I’ve increased my time because I’m using a halogen oven with a reduced cooking temperature.

You can hopefully just see that my 200mm square tin wedges itself inside the 12lt glass bowl of my oven, with no need for a supporting wire rack underneath.

Half-an-hour later and the baking is done. I tend to remove the tin from the oven immediately and set it upon a wire rack to cool.

Once cooled, I will carefully cut it up in to bar-like segments of eight. You could easily divide it in to square of sixteen. There are always a few seeds and raisins that fall away, in my experience, but I’ve never suffered a complete disaster with this recipe.

I can fit eight days’ worth of flapjack in to one of these food containers and with room to spare. As I say; I bake these often and eat them every day. I’m generally a fussy eater who doesn’t like a lot and I wouldn’t bother with these if I didn’t happen to like them. 😉

This also features as my most recent YouTube upload.

Thanks for reading.