Flapjacks

Today I made flapjacks with chocolate on top. I used a recipe from The Student Cookbook by Beverly LeBlanc (which also contains a good pizza dough recipe amongst other things), but I didn't think that eight flapjacks would be enough for five students so I tripled the recipe, but cut the butter because 540g butter seemed excessive. I also put melted chocolate on top of 2/3 of them - I would have put it on all of them but some people requested plain ones.

Makes 21

Ingredients

300g Butter
180g Light Brown Muscovado
6 Tbsp Golden Syrup
200g Oats
200g White Chocolate
200g Plain/Milk Chocolate

Don't Make My Mistakes!

• I used grease-proof paper but this was not good enough as the edges of the flapjacks stuck to it, so I would advise baking parchment, non-stick something or just grease the paper you use. I think I might have been better off just pouring the mix straight into the tins as they're non-stick, but never mind.
• Use oven gloves when you take bowls out of the microwave. I burned my fingers.

Recipe

• Heat the oven to 180C. Line a deep baking tray (I used a roasting tin because we students can't afford every type of tin under the sun), or if you want to make both plain and chocolatey ones line both a baking tray and a sandwich cake tin.
• Melt the butter, sugar and golden syrup in a saucepan until everything has melted. The butter will form a layer on top, but this is normal. Make sure you stir the mixture occasionally so that nothing sticks to the pan and burns.
• Take the pan off the heat and fold in the oats until they are evenly coated with the golden syrup mixture.
• Spoon the mixture into the baking tray(s) and smooth with a spatula or other flat object. You could use the bottom of a mug or something.
• Bake in the oven for 25 minutes, or if you have a fan oven then either bake for 20 minutes or reduce the oven heat to 160C and bake for the same length of time as you would for a regular oven.
• When the flapjacks are golden brown, take them out of the oven and leave them in the tin to cool.
• Meanwhile, melt the chocolate. You can either do this in a bowl over a pan of hot water or in a microwave. I use the microwave as it's easier and means I don't have to find a bowl-pan combination that keeps the water out of the chocolate. In the microwave it should take 2 minutes at medium-high heat, but keep checking after every 30 seconds or so, and make sure you stir it. Keep the chocolate in sepearate bowls too, otherwise you won't get both white chocolate and plain chocolate flapjacks, just some kind of marble effect. If you want a marble effect, go right ahead.
• Pour the plain chocolate onto one half of the flapjacks and spread over that half using a spatula, or a spoon if you have nothing else. Do the same with the white chocolate on the other half. If you want a cool marble effect in the middle so that some of your flapjacks are a bit of both types of chocolate, take the spatula and swirl it around the line between white and plain chocolate until you get something you're happy with.

• Put the cooled flapjacks in the fridge so that the chocolate sets. You might want to score where you're going to cut them up so that it's easier to get through the chocolate later and your handiwork isn't ruined.
• Once the chocolate has set, cut up the flapjacks and store in an airtight container.

Ta-dah! Done.

I know this isn't the most complex of procedures, but I wanted to make some flapjacks after seeing some in the Student Union shop. Nothing is priced in the union shop, so I decided I'd make some (probably nicer ones) instead of being overcharged for something that's very cheap to make.

Stay tuned, there's a rainbow cake being made tomorrow...