Flapjacks
Butter, golden syrup and brown sugar melted together and stirred through oats, baked until the edges darken and left to set hard in the tin.
- Prep
- 10m
- Cook
- 25m
- Waiting
- 1h
- Total
- 1h 35m
- Serves
- 16 squares
- Effort
- Easy
Method
Tap a step number to mark it done. Tap an ingredient once for got it, twice for need it.
| 200 g | Melt the butter, sugar and syrup together over low heat 5m Melt only. Boiling it makes brittle toffee flapjacks. | Stir the oats into the melted mixture until every flake is coated 3m | Press firmly into a lined tin 3m Really compact it with the back of a spoon — this is the one bake where pressing helps. | Bake at 170°C / 340°F for 25 minutes until the edges are dark gold 25m The middle should still look slightly underdone. It sets as the syrup cools. | Cool completely in the tin, then cut into 16 1h Score the lines while warm, cut when cold. Cut hot and they fall apart. | |
| 100 g | ||||||
| 100 g | ||||||
| 1/2 tsp | ||||||
| 350 g | ||||||
| 75 g |
-
Melt the butter, sugar and syrup together over low heat
5m- unsalted butter 200 g
- golden syrup 100 g
- light brown sugar 100 g
- fine salt 1/2 tsp
Melt only. Boiling it makes brittle toffee flapjacks.
-
Stir the oats into the melted mixture until every flake is coated
3m- from 1 Melt the butter, sugar and syrup together over low heat
- rolled oats 350 g
- sultanas (optional) 75 g
-
Press firmly into a lined tin
3m- from 2 Stir the oats into the melted mixture until every flake is coated
Really compact it with the back of a spoon — this is the one bake where pressing helps.
-
Bake at 170°C / 340°F for 25 minutes until the edges are dark gold
25m- from 3 Press firmly into a lined tin
The middle should still look slightly underdone. It sets as the syrup cools.
-
Cool completely in the tin, then cut into 16
1h- from 4 Bake at 170°C / 340°F for 25 minutes until the edges are dark gold
Score the lines while warm, cut when cold. Cut hot and they fall apart.
Golden syrup is the glue
Golden syrup is largely invert sugar — glucose and fructose rather than sucrose — and invert sugars resist crystallising. They cool into a thick, pliable, slightly hygroscopic glass instead of a grainy solid, which is what holds the oats together and keeps flapjacks chewy for a week. Swap it for ordinary sugar syrup and you get a crumbly slab that dries out in two days. The salt is there to stop the whole thing reading as one flat note of sweetness.
Notes
- The bake time controls the texture. Twenty minutes gives soft and gooey, thirty gives crisp and toffee-like.
- Line the tin with paper, not just butter. Set caramel welds itself to metal.
- Weigh the syrup rather than spooning it. A tablespoon of syrup can be anything from 15 to 30 g.