Flapjack Recipe (Both Chewy & Crunchy Versions)

Description

A simple to make oaty cake that is sweet, moist & chewy (or caramel flavoured, hard & crunchy).

Summary

Mix oats with melted margarine, golden syrup & sugar.
Bake.
Takes approximately: 5 min work, 25 min cooking, 60 min total.

Ingredients

Porridge (chopped rolled) oats	125 g
Rolled oats	125 g
Margarine	150 g
Golden syrup	75 g
Sugar	75 g

Equipment

Oven. Hob & saucepan (or microwave oven with microwaveable bowl). Knife, chopstick, wooden spoon or similar (to mix ingredients with). Pallet knife (to press into cake tin with). Scales & spoons (or just estimate). Square shallow baking tin about 20 cm sided. Greaseproof paper.

Detailed Instructions for Chewy Flapjack

Put the margarine, sugar & golden syrup in saucepan (or microwaveable bowl if using a microwave oven) and heat until it is all liquid.
Meanwhile line the baking tin with greaseproof paper.
Mix all the oats into the liquid.
Put the mixture into the baking tin & press flat.
Bake at 175 deg C (Gas Mark 4) for 25 to 30 minutes. Warning: the timing is tolerant but accuracy in temperature is critical.
Slice into 8 fingers (by cutting into half along the perpendicular bisector of two sides and into quarters perpendicular to the first cut) before it sets but leave in place in tin.
Leave to cool and set.

Crunchy Flapjack

The recipe is identical to chewy version but cook at 15 deg (one Gas Mark) hotter.

Fruit Flapjack

The recipe is identical to above but mix in some raisins and/or sultanas before baking (obviously).

Notes

The chewy and brittle versions can be make simultaneously from the same mix by baking them on different shelves in the same oven provided the oven does not have forced temperature equalisation (e.g. a fan oven) by utilising the temperature differences between shelves. In my gas oven, I can bake chewy flapjack on the middle shelve whilst baking brittle flapjack on the top shelf.
The rolled oats are not vital. Flapjack can be made from pure porridge oats but the texture is less interesting. however, pure rolled oats does not work well because the resulting cake is very fragile.
I have not calibrated my oven (I just relied on its thermostat) so please check your oven produces flapjack the way you like it and adjust the temperature accordingly before producing a big batch. My oven, being a gas one, reaches its final temperature quickly; if your is an electric one without a fan assist it will take far longer to warm up and save time & electricity by cooking as it warms up then the nominal settings may be very different.
I have been asked by a reader of this site from North America as to what 'golden syrup' is. It is the British English name for a common viscous sugar syrup. It is golden brown, transparent, about 80% sugar & 20% water and made from a cane sugar solution that has been partially 'inverted' (sucrose split into glucose & fructose to make it sweeter). It has a slightly butterscotch taste and is often erroneously called 'treacle' because it, not real treacle, is used with breadcrumbs & shortcrust pastry to make 'treacle tart'. It is probably uncommon in the USA because of the USA's high tariff on sugar imports. That reader used maple syrup instead and wrote that it tasted very good (but maple syrup is far more expensive than golden syrup in the UK). Another reader later informed me that 'corn syrup' is the USA equivalent. Corn syrup is similar but is made from maize and its sugar is just glucose. Its derivative from converting some of the glucose to sucrose, 'high fructose corn syrup' (a.k.a. 'HFCS' or 'isoglucose'), is probably chemically closer to golden syrup. Another reader then told me that corn syrup is often called 'Karo' after its most well known brand. According to the ingredients on the Karo website, Karo Syrup is a mixture of corn syrup & HFCS but contains a substantial non-sugar carbohydrate content. Another reader, who has lived in UK & USA, told me that corn syrup is not as sweet as golden syrup and both it and maple syrup are runnier. That reader recommended honey (which tastes good but is much more expensive than golden syrup).
This is a remarkably cheap cake because it can be made with no eggs, chocolate, fruit or alcohol.

Origin

This is a family recipe except for the details. The original recipe was simply "Melt margarine, sugar & golden syrup in the ratio 2:1:1. Add sufficient porridge oats. Bake with whatever else is being cooked." and sometimes produced a chewy cake, sometimes a brittle one. When I came to want to make it for a party, I experimented across different temperatures, times & compositions to remove the chance element to get it reliably chewy. Whilst the experiments were cooking, a friend telephoned and told me she liked flapjack hard so I recorded how to make hard flapjack as well. The rolled oats instead of porridge oats were originally an accident when I bought the wrong type of oats but found they worked well.