New Year is here and I am glad. By now even I have had my fill of rich food, mince pies, Christmas cake, plum pudding and endless little snacks. Not to mention the chocolates!
Today I feel I can say no more rich food. There again I might say that in my mind but my somewhere else can’t quite go to the other extreme.
I need to cook a treat that is somewhat guilt free and perhaps something I feel that is not all bad. Enter the Flapjack. The butter, sugar and syrup might not be all good but the oats are, and that is the guilt free ingredient I am hanging on to.
When I started cooking I would look through my mothers cookery books for inspiration of what I might like to make. Something that would be simple and that had a very small window for failure but tasted wonderful. After I had persuaded my mother to let me use the kitchen, instead of going for simple I opted for complicated and the result was a complete failure. This put back my biscuit making by quite a few months and I was barred from using the kitchen again. I had to wait until my mother had gone out for the afternoon before embarking on my next choice, the Flapjack.
They didn’t disappoint me then and they still don’t disappoint now. They are no oil painting of a biscuit but as the saying goes ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’.
Flapjacks
Ingredients
4 oz/125g Butter
3 oz/80g Golden syrup (leave a metal spoon in boiling water for a few minutes then measure out the golden syrup, this will help the syrup to slide off the spoon)
3 oz/80g Soft brown sugar
8 oz/250g Rolled oats
Oven: Gas Mark 4/350F/180C
Swiss roll tin 8” x 12” /20cm x 30cm (the tin size isn’t vital, there is a small amount of give and take)
Method
Put the butter, golden syrup and sugar into a pan and gently melt. Once melted remove from heat and add the oats and stir well.
Spread the mixture onto a non-stick buttered tin roughly 8” x 12” using a fork, press the mixture down and spread-out evenly across the tin.
Bake for approximately 30 minutes. Watching that the edges do not burn.
Leave in the tin for a few minutes, then with a sharp knife divide into fingers.
Straight out of the oven the mixture will be too soft to divide up so it’s best to leave it a few minutes. The mixture cools very quickly and if left too long will not cut easily as it will become too brittle.
After dividing, leave it to cool before turning over the tin and tapping them out. My method is to prise them out individually using the excuse of eating any broken ones.
Store in an airtight tin or container and they will keep a couple of days, the longer you keep them the softer they become.
Maria Dernikos 
These sound like the perfect antidote for all of the rich and fatty foods devoured over the holidays. Good to see that in your kitchen, like mine, broken or misshapen servings go to the cook. 🙂
Wishing you and yours a very Happy New Year, Maria!
My aunt used to call them cook’s perks!
A happy and healthy New Year to you too.