Easy Flapjacks

Flapjacks are kinda weird: somewhere between cookie and müsli-bar. Delicious, easy to make and surprisingly satiating. Don’t be fooled by all the “healthy” ingredients like oats, fruits, nuts and honey, they still are what they are, a sweet treat totally worth the calories, but still having quite some calories. Sorry, I just hate it when sweets are labeled “healthy” and then marketed any calorie free. Anyways, enjoy these flapjack cookies, they are simply amazing!

Credits where credits are due: this recipe is an adaptation of Jamie Oliver’s flapjack recipe published in his 5 Ingredients cookbook (a great book by the way and highly recommended). He uses golden syrup, which is virtually unknown in Austria. I switched it with honey, because I always have honey at home and I love its taste. You could probably use any honey-like syrup you can think of for this recipe, like date molasses, coconut syrup or whatever else your local health store has to offer.

Feel free to play around with the mixed dried fruits and nuts. You can buy any premade mixture, but I think it would be nice to come up with something of your own if you feel inspired. This way you can incorporate pistacchios or maybe even pine nuts. Go for a 50/50 mix of fruits and nuts. Dried fruits only are probably a little too sweet and only nuts a little too heavy.

If you’re very brave, you can even play aroud with the flour but be aware that the kind of flour you use can have dramatic impact on the texture from a very sticky dough to “it barely holds together”. If you want to play safe use a mixture of plain wheat flour and the new flour you would like to try.

The recipe itself is child’s play. Just pulse everything in a food processor, press into a baking tin, bake, cut, done.

Ingredients

• 100g porridge oats (the fine cut, crumbly variety)
• 100g butter (at room temperature)
• 100g mixed dried fruits and nuts (“Studentenfutter” in German)
• 100g of honey
• 100g of plain wheat flour
• 1tsp baking powder (or use self-raising flour if available)
• a generous pinch of salt, cinnamon to taste (we used 1tsp)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
2. Get a 20cm long deep square baking tin and cut a piece of greeseproof paper to fit it. Scrunch it in your hands and flatten it out again so it becomes pliable. Rub it with a little olive oil and line your baking tin with it.
3. Pulse the butter, dried fruit and nuts, oats, flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon until the mix comes together and away from the sides.
4. Add the honey and pulse again until fully combined.
5. Transfer to the lined tin, flatten out the mixture and bake for ~20 minutes until golden.
6. Remove from the oven and slice into 16 squares. Leave to cool a few minutes, then use the paper to lift out on a wire rack, and leave to cool completely.

Macros

Makes 16 delicious flapjacks, each having the following macros:

• 140kcal
• 2g protein
• 16g carbs
• 8g fat

Obviously a cookie like this isn’t easy to fit into the deepest cutting phase, but until then, it is a great companion for an afternoon tea and a way better alternative to store bought Müsli-bars, which are generally way to sweet for me (even though I really like sweet sweets). They are also surprisingly filling and satisfying.