Gooey, sticky crunchy goodness.  I love a flapjack.  All too often when you buy a flapjack from a commercial bakers or to go with your grande, non-fat, frappa mocha, extra dry, hold the whipped, pumpkin spiced latte… they tend to be too dry or rather tasteless.

Now, if you are having a major flapjack emergency and absolutely need one right there and then, of course a shop bought product will do, but there is nothing better than making your own decadent and dare I say it healthy …… I mean it has got Honey, Lemon and Ginger in it so it must be healthy right??? ………… no? OK, I will just stick with decadent slab of flapjack goodness.

So, my recipe for a great flapjack consists of

250g Butter – nearly every recipe you look for will say unsalted butter, but I just love salted butter in sweet recipes
250g Runny Honey – I used Spanish honey for this batch as it was given to me by my Spanish friend
200g soft brown Sugar

Melt the above ingredients in a saucepan over a low (I mean really low or you will burn your pan) heat until all the sugar is dissolved and you are left with a slightly foamy (this will be the salt in the butter) melted mass of rich sweetness.

Add the Juice and Rind of 1 Lemon, some roughly chopped Stem Ginger (I wont give a quantity as always with ginger recipes you may like it with just a hint of ginge, or you might like a full on hit of ginger.  For me it has to be fiery & fierce so I added quite a bit), 150g of Granola & 350g oats.  If you have no Granola, then just use 500g of oats. I only add the granola to get a bit more crunch in my flapjack.

Stir this together until combined and pour into a tin that has been lined with greaseproof paper.  I wouldn’t butter the paper or the tin as this often causes the flapjack to burn at the edges.

Cook this at 140c for approximately 25 minutes.  Now I say approximately as this one took an amazing 45 minutes to cook through, where others have taken only 20 minutes.  After about 15 minutes of cooking, check that the flapjack looks set but still a bit squishy in the middle and the edges are a golden brown.  then gauge it by either 10 or 5 minutes more cooking time.

You don’t want it to cook and set hard in the oven, you still need it to be rather soft in the middle as once you take it out and leave it to cool in the tin it will firm up.  After about an hour of cooling time, turn it out onto a wire rack and carefully peel off the greaseproof paper.  You may find it sticks slightly so be extra careful not to rip off chunks of flapjack as you are trying to get the paper off.

Once de-papered, you need to leave it to totally cool down and then cut into uneven squares.  (who needs the pressure of trying to get the squares totally even).  My flapjack made 18 squares.

Store these in a cool place in an airtight tin or container.  It will last around 2 weeks (or 14.75 hours in my house!!)

 

Some of you eagle eyed readers may notice the Sea salt in the background.  these flapjacks are extremely sweet, so I like to add a little sprinkling of salt over them before, well, eating them!

I’ve found by doing this it really brings out the lemon taste.

My suggestion, try it on a small flapjack square and don’t sprinkle on too much!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Baking.  I’d love to see your flapjack recipes.  Like me on Facebook or find me on Instagram