Flapjack Recipe

Flapjacks

Sticky, Chewy...

As part of my ever yo-yo-ing diet, I am trying to steer clear of wheat based carbs. Not so much because I am a teensey bit intolerant (not as much as some friends are, but enough to make me want to experiment with my best loved recipes)

Oats are a fabulous and tasty way of replacing toast with porridge at breakfast time so, of course, being me, I decided to make a sweet treat to keep things interesting for later in the day. 

This recipe is not so great for those of us on a slimming diet, but is fantastic for the tastebuds. And I avoided reaching for toast, which is what started this whole thing off in the first place!

I replaced caster (superfine) sugar with light brown musgavado sugar but you may like super-sweet, I like mine just sweet. 

250g butter, plus extra for greasing

250g sugar light brown or caster

175g golden (corn) syrup

500g jumbo porridge oats 

Preheat the oven to 180^o C

Grease a 20cm square cake tin

Melt the butter on a low heat in a saucepan, add golden syrup and sugar and stir in

Add oats and stir well.

Take off the heat and pour into the tin and press down firmly

Bake for 20 minutes and golden. Don't let the colour get too dark as the sugar caramelises and your flapjack will become brittle or harder to chew. It sets more as it cools down. 

Cut into pieces before flapjack cools completely. 

Serve with a massive cuppa

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Jubilee Glee

Once every so often, you get the chance to celebrate something big, and this year it is the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. Ten years ago, my mum was in the procession down Pall Mall and as we watched on, we celebrated with ribbons on sticks which looked amazing by the way, all the way down the Mall.

This coming bank holiday weekend, I have decided to embrace all the celebrations with gusto! You should have seen me during the Royal Wedding last year, I was telling my, then, one year old all about happily-ever-afters already!

So, regardless of television adverts milking the party element to it, I will be excited to be living in England celebrating our Queen and making the most of that fairytale feeling and i hope we can all get to a street party, even i its not our own.

I will be at Bicester Avenue Big Lunch on the 3rd (Sunday) with some jubilee themed cupcakes and treats.

I hope you are feeling the Jubilee Glee too! More on Facebook

Lucy x

Oxford Bake Off

When I found out that the judges for The Oxford Bake Off included Benoit Blin, is Chef Patissier at Raymond Blanc’s Le Manoir aux Quat Saisons in Oxfordshire and Kate Shirazi, a baker whose book, Cake Magic, I had been given as a gift about two years ago, I was excited and nervous. 

Shirazi, whose recipes  I had turned to many a cold winter's evening for comforting cookie recipes were down to earth, so I naturally felt a little comfort in that fact but the sheer thought of these professionals merely eating what I had created was a privilege in itself, let alone them judging me winner for Cupcake Connoisseur and overall Star Baker!