Sticky Ginger and Apple Flapjacks

When I was a child I remember my mum and sister making some flapjacks that were so sticky, we were picking bits of kitchen towel off them as we ate - they had been kept in a Tupperware dish lined with kitchen paper and were almost oozing with golden syrup.

I love sticky, soft flapjack, but not that soft - they need to hold together and be slightly chewy at the edges but soft and buttery in the middle. This recipe offers just that.

These were made in preparation of my sister and her partner coming to visit to meet their new niece, and even though I only made them the day before, about half the pan had been eaten before they even arrived!

The recipe is based on one from Good Housekeeping's The Baking Book; I halved the quantities but also added grated apple for extra flavour as I had a few apples that needed using up. The result was absolutely delicious and the texture was perfect.

Here's what I did:
You need:

175g butter or marg (I used Stork)
135g caster sugar
120g golden syrup
225g rolled oats
1 tsp ground ginger
2 apples, peeled and grated

Preheat oven to 175C. Grease and line a square cake tin.

Heat the butter, sugar and golden syrup in a saucepan over a gentle heat until melted. Stir in the rolled oats, ginger and apple until combined.

Spoon into the cake tin and press down gently to spread the mixture out and flatten it. Bake for 30 minutes until the edges have turned golden brown and slightly crispy; the middle will still be soft and sticky.

 

 I'm sharing this with Only Crumbs Remain
 and CookBlogShare.
 

 

Jammy Flapjacks

I'm sure I'm not alone in having half-empty packets and jars at the back of the cupboard, whether it is an ingredient I bought for a particular recipe or something I've simply forgotten I had... so I was pleased when I saw this month's Random Recipe challenge from Dom at Belleau Kitchen. What's more, it's a thrifty challenge which is always a good thing!

He asked us to "open up the cupboard door, reach in deep and pull out the first thing you touch", and then choose a recipe using that ingredient. Now, I knew that I had neglected ingredients languishing at the back of the larder, and in the cupboard where I keep baking supplies, and in the fridge, and that if I had to choose one cupboard to root around in, I would be making a conscious decision already about what kind of ingredient to use (eg baking or savoury). So instead, I went through all my cupboards and made a list of all the long-forgotten ingredients I felt I ought to use up, and numbered them one to 31 (which made me feel quite guilty!). I then used a random number generator to pick one out, and discovered my random ingredient for this month was..... jam!

Now it doesn't particularly help that I don't like jam, which explains why I had a jar hanging around in the fridge drawer! I was racking my brains about what I could make using jam, and also whether there was another blogging challenge I could enter it in, to kill two birds with one stone. I then remembered that Homemade by Fleur is running a flapjack competition this month and I figured this would be a good way to use the jam.

I found a basic flapjack recipe on the internet to make sure I had the rough quantities right. To begin, I mixed 100g rolled oats, 30g plain flour and 50g ground almonds - another half-empty packet I had in the back of the cupboard!

Melt 75g butter and stir in, along with 1 tbsp golden syrup, mixing everything well.

Press about half the mixture into a greased and lined cake tin

Then spread over a thin layer of jam - I used strawberry.

Sprinkle the rest of the flapjack mix on the top and gently press down.

Bake in the oven at 180C for about 20 mins then cut into pieces. I had wanted to sprinkle some flaked almonds over the top but I couldn't find any. I'm sure I have a packet in the back of the cupboard which probably means I'll find them in six months time!

I did find the flapjacks didn't hold together quite as well as I'd hoped and next time I'd probably use more golden syrup but they didn't turn out too badly at all.

So I'm sending this to Belleau Kitchen for Random Recipes...

and to Homemade by Fleur's Challenge Flapjack

 

I am also sending this to Tea Time Treats, hosted by Karen of Lavender and Lovage and Kate of What Kate Baked. Their theme for October is jam and preserves, and I originally thought that meant I would have to make jam or curd of some sort - which I've never done before, don't really like eating and haven't had time to do this month! But I tweeted and asked if a recipe including jam would count, even if I hadn't made the jam myself, and they very kindly said yes. I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else made for this challenge!