Flapjacks of Redemption

Day One of maternity leave and I have already been caught up in the baking and jamming excitement of recent days. Having some oat based crumble topping let from the weekend, my sister Mich very helpfully suggested I turn it into flapjacks without truly realising the magnitude of what she has said.

My last attempt at flapjacks was a disastrous tale of woe which frankly has left me in a cold sweat ever since. I’m not sure about anyone else, but I find that when I start to follow the teachings of a celebrity chef, allow them bit by bit into my world and give them the responsibility or my own culinary success. On the odd occasion that one of these chefs sells me a pup, it is of course their fault, and not mine.

So it was that when I bought the last Red Nose recipe book in a fit of charitable fervour and tried Mr Oliver’s recipe for flapjacks. I was a little curious at the time as to why it said I needed to use an entire stick of butter, but who (I reasoned) was I to challenge the great man in this regard? If Jamie says it needs a stick of butter then a stick of butter it shall have!! When the flapjacks came out of the oven they looked perfect, absolutely perfect, and it wasn’t until a short cooling period later that I realised that these flapjacks were in fact self greasing.

Yup, once the flapjacks were turned out, it was clear to see that the inch or so of perfect flapjack was in fact perched proudly on another inch of pure fat. I was crushed, not least because I hadn’t spotted it before handing out the first pieces to Keith and Bill, who had spotted this hideous buttery error before me and made good with the teasing.

Two years on and I am still waiting for them to get tired of this story.

I think I could have happily hung up my flapjack making pinny on a permanent basis after that episode, but I decided to give it another go this morning and instead of risking further chefly disappointment, I decided to invent a flapjack recipe of my own taking into account the ingredients already mixed into the crumble topping and the various bits piled into the larder.

These, my friends are truly flapjacks of a different colour, and probably a one off venture unless I somehow manage to stumble on a similar set of circumstances. Who cares though, they have done the trick and finally silenced my tormentors.