It’s been a while since my last blog entry. August turned
out to be a very busy month, starting with the pop up shop. I also went away to
visit family, had a lot of tea parties to cater for and I am also very pregnant
so everything takes twice as long as usual! Anyway, this bake, even though it’s
a little late may have actually come about at the right time. The kids have
been back to school for a couple of weeks now, but I’m already hearing parents
complaining that they’re fresh out of ideas when it comes to lunch boxes. This
recipe comes for Annabel Karmel’s ‘You Can Cook’, which shows you step by step
ways to cook with your kids. I haven’t followed her recipe to the letter (I
seem to have an inability to follow any recipe in this way) and adapted it to what
the kids like and what was in the cupboard at the time. To be honest, I think
this is what any parent does right? These ‘flapjacks’ last long enough in the
fridge and they’re more likely to eat them if they’ve helped to make them
themselves. I had two helpers with mine, my daughter Molly and her best friend
Xavvi. Needless to say, the flapjacks didn’t last the week.
Ingredients:
3oz butter
3 oz brown
sugar
3
tablespoons of syrup, maple or golden, it doesn’t matter
½ tsp salt
2 ½ oz dried
fruit, we used apricots and blueberries.
4oz oats
1oz rice
crispies
1 oz desiccated
coconut
1 oz
sultanas (we didn’t put these in, we don’t like them, we just added more
coconut instead)
Method:
Preheat the
oven to 170C / Gas Mark 3. Line an 8 inch square tin with baking parchment, and
make sure that the paper comes up the sides of the tin so you can lift it out
at the end.
Put the
butter, sugar, syrup and salt into a saucepan. Heat gently and stir until it’s
all melted and mixed in, then leave to cool while you do the other stuff
Chop the
dried fruit into little bits and put into a bowl with oat, rice crispies,
coconut and sultanas. Then pour over the butter mixture.
Stir well to
combine and then spoon into your tin. Press down evenly. We used a potato
masher to do this. Bake for about 30 minutes making sure it’s golden around the
edges; wait till it’s cooled before slicing up. It has a tendency to fall apart
if you don’t!