Condensed Milk Flapjacks

AKA, on the Carnation website, as Cherry Berry Fruit Bars

I recently noticed a part-used can of condensed milk lurking at the back of the fridge. It's a real bore picking recipes which use part of a can, because a) you don't want to bake another recipe using it too soon after the first and b) you can never find a recipe which uses the exact amount you have left over!

Searching for something which used about 2/3 of a can, I came across this recipe on the Carnation web-site. The whole recipe uses a full can, but I figured if I cut it down in size I could get away with what I had. Calculations of baking tin sizes made me realise I couldn't get away with 2/3 of all the ingredients, but could use 4/5 of everything in a 8" sqaure tin. This left me a little short of condensed milk, so I added an extra heaped tablespoon of golden syrup to compensate.

This recipe was absolutely packed with dried fruit and seeds. My usual flapjack recipe uses much less, and I've always wondered how much more it would take, and still hold together. Judging by this I could add a lot more to offset the butter and sugars! I used dried fruit from a pack of Cherries and Berries, rather than just cherries and cranberries, but  other than that I used dried apricots, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds, as suggested.

The condensed milk gave a lovely gooey, chewy texture to the flapjacks and combined with the brown sugar and syrup to give a toffee flavour, but I felt the amount of fruit and seeds overwhelmed all of this. I actually prefer a flapjack recipe with less add-ins and more of the flavour of oats and golden syrup. So although this was a delicious fruit-loaded bar, I don't think it will replace my usual recipe when I want flapjacks.

Halva Flapjacks

This Dan Lepard recipe for flapjacks using tahini and condensed milk had a mixed reception. Hubs and I both really liked it, but I had made it primarily for FB's lunchboxes, and she didn't like it one bit! Which left us with a lot to eat, when we are both watching our waistlines, in a bid to stop further expansion. FB is not happy with lots of nuts, and, although I used mixed seeds instead of the nuts in the recipe, to her, the combination of tahini and the seeds tasted 'too nutty'.

The point of using the tahini, if you look at the link, is to reduce the amount of butter used, but there is still an awful lot of sugar in this recipe - so it's not for the calorie conscious! As usual, I made a few changes to the recipe, out of necessity - to replace the walnuts I used 50g each of pumpkin and sunflower seeds, and in place of 100g dates I used a mix of equal parts of dates, sultanas and cranberries. I used the full amount of oats mentioned and baked the flapjack in a 20cm tin, but think a slightly larger one would have been better - perhaps 22cm.

As I said, Hubs and I really liked this flapjack - the basic flavour was exactly like the sesame halva which my mother-in-law used to put in food parcels when she visited us*, with the added bonus of more textures and flavours from the oats, dried fruits and seeds. The fudginess produced by the tahini, sugars, butter and condensed milk makes these much different to most flapjacks

* My nominally Jewish MIL, with whom I had a very good relationship, was a fantastic cook and inspired me to cook properly when Hubs and I first married. She insisted on giving food parcels on visits - some delightful goodies like smoked salmon, salami, halva, biscuits and homemade cheesecake, but also nasty chocolates imported from Israel and manky over ripe fruit bought cheap at her local markets. We had to thank her nicely, wait until she had gone, and then ruthlessly throw a lot of the stuff away!

Cranberry and Apricot Flapjacks

This is another variation of my basic flapjack recipe, featuring my favourite combination of dried fruit - cranberries and apricots.

This time I cut down the butter to see what effect it has. The flapjacks were crisper than usual and had a slight tendency to crumble at the edges, but overall it was an acceptable change. CT doesn't eat flapjacks, so I had no concerns about using butter in the first place. These were made primarily for FB's lunchbox - she's quite happy to make up a batch of Dan Lepard's marmalade flapjacks, when she has time, but although they are very tasty I find them a little too soft and crumbly for my taste.

Ingredients:
200g butter, 100g golden syrup, 150g light muscovado sugar; 350g rolled oats, approx. 150g dried fruit, nuts and seeds*.

Method:
Melt the butter, sugar and syrup together, either in a bowl in the microwave or a pan on the hob. Remove from the heat when the butter has melted. Stir in the other ingredients. Press the mixture into a 12 x 8" tin lined with baking parchment and bake at 180C for 25 minutes. Cool for 15 minutes before marking into bars, but cool completely before removing from tin.

* I used 50g each of dried cranberries and chopped apricots, 20g each of chopped toasted hazelnuts and pumpkin seeds and two tablespoons of sesame seeds.

Flapjacks with Apricots and Sultanas

This was probably the last routine baking session before Christmas - something to keep the cake tin full - and I chose something that could be prepared and mixed up in less than 5 minutes, and cooked while I was working on other things in the kitchen. Flapjack is so quick to make and satisfying to eat - I think the only reason I don't make it more often is that it is packed with butter and sugar and seems less healthy than other  baked goods. This is probably a fallacy though - this recipe is 50% fat and sugar by weight, which is no different to a standard Victoria Sandwich cake, before you fill it with buttercream or jam. Plus, it has oats in, which may reduce cholesterol levels, and you can add a healthy selection of dried fruit and seeds of your choice.

So - don't feel guilty about flapjacks - sounds like a good New Year's resolution to me!

Ingredients

250g salted butter
100g golden syrup
150g light muscovado sugar
350g rolled or porridge oats

150g dried fruit, seeds, or nuts of your choice - in this batch I used 55g dried apricots, 50g sultanas, 25g pumpkin seeds and 20g sesame seeds - chop any large fruit to the size of sultanas

Method

Preheat oven to 180C. Line a 12 x 8 x 1" deep (30 x 20 x 2.5cm deep) baking tray with one piece of baking parchment, folding it into the corners, so that it comes up the sides of the tin. (You don't want any of the flapjack mix in contact with the tin.)

Melt the butter, syrup and sugar together, either in a large microwaveable bowl or a saucepan on the hob. Once the butter has melted, stop heating and mix together until the sugar has dissolved.

Tip in all the other ingredients and mix together thoroughly. When there are no dry patches of oats, transfer everything to the baking tray and press down firmly into an even layer.

Bake for about 25 minutes, until the flapjack is just turning golden. This makes a chewy flapjack - if you like it crisper, bake for a few minutes longer until a deep golden in colour.

Cool for 10 minutes, then mark the flapjack into squares. Cool completely before trying to remove from the tin.

Flapjack

A while back I made these Fig and Pumpkin Seed Bars. Although I really liked the flavour, I didn't like the basic bar recipe. I eventually got around to trying the mixture of dried figs, sour cherries, pumpkin seeds and walnuts in my usual flapjack recipe. This was a big improvement, as my flapjacks are perfect (in my eyes!) - thick and chewy, as I like them. I would like to incorporate some maple syrup in future, although I know from experience that this alters the texture of the flapjack.



This is my basic flapjack recipe, which produces a thick chewy flapjack which isn't at all crumbly.

For these flapjacks I used 90g dried figs, 70g dried sour cherries, 40g pumpkin seeds and 50g walnuts. I chopped the figs, walnuts and dried cherries into smaller pieces, adding the pumpkin seeeds at the end so that only a few were chopped and most remained whole. This could be done in a processor, with brief pulses, but I used a mezzaluna.

Ingredients

250g butter
100g golden syrup
150g light muscovado sugar
350g rolled (porridge) oats
150g dried fruit, nuts and seeds of choice - chopped where necessary

Method

Fully line a 30 x 20cm x 2.5cm deep (12" x 8" x 1" deep) baking tin with parchment, ensuring that the parchment comes up the sides of the tin, so that none of the flapjack mix will touch the tin. I do this with one piece of paper, pressed and folded into the corners.

Melt the butter, syrup and sugar together, either in a large bowl in the microwave, or in a large saucepan on the hob, on a low heat.

Stir in the oats and dried fruit mix. Mix well until the wet mix is evenly distributed.

Press the mixture into the tin as evenly as possible, then bake at 180C for 25 - 30 minutes until just turning golden. If you prefer a crisper flapjack, bake for a few minutes more.

Remove from oven, allow to cool for 10 minutes then mark into bars. Allow to cool completely before removing bars from the tin.

To make smaller batches, use 2/3 of the quantities given in a 20cm (8") square tin, or half quantities in a 18cm (7") tin.

Fig and Pumpkin Seed Bars

A biscuit recipe from Nigel Slater, in his weekly column in the Observer newspaper, caught my eye recently, for the unusual combination of flavouring ingredients used. As well as the eponymous figs and pumpkin seeds, dried cherries and walnuts are used, plus some ground almonds in the base oat mix and maple syrup in the binding mix.

In his preamble to the recipe, Nigel describes his quest to make a muesli style biscuit which is crunchy, yet still sticky like a flapjack. I like my flapjacks thick and chewy, not biscuity, so wasn't sure how I would like the texture of this Fig and Pumpkin Seed Bar, but decided it was worth a try for the flavours alone.

The only change I made to the recipe was to use pecans instead of walnuts; if there were walnuts in my storecupboard, then I couldn't find them! I chopped the figs in the mini-processor first, to the size of raisins, then added the rest of the fruit, nuts and seeds and pulsed briefly until the nuts were chopped. This reduced the figs, cherries and pecan nuts to quite small pieces but left the pumpkin seeds more or less intact - I didn't want the biscuits to be too crumbly. After baking, I cooled the mixture with some weights on top, as Nigel stressed the need to press them down while cooling.



The final result was a thin oat bar which is crunchy, flavoursome and very sweet, but to me is neither a crisp biscuit nor a chewy flapjack. I really liked the flavours together but didn't really like the texture. I think I would prefer using the same combination of nuts, fruits, seeds and maple syrup in my usual flapjack recipe, or in a soft cookie recipe.