easy flapjacks

Ok, so all flapjacks are easy to make but I threw these together tonight because I had a few odds and ends in my cupboard that I wanted to use up and I love flapjacks. The beauty of a flapjack recipe is that it is quite forgiving. Once you understand the basics you can vary things according to your preferences. Essentially you need 2:1:1 of oats/nuts/muesli:butter:sugar with some additional syrup if you want the goo. The quantities below make a fairly thin flapjack

Ingredients
200g rolled oats or muesli of your choice (I used a mixture of muesli, crushed walnuts and rolled oats, just make sure you've got more oats than everything else)
100g butter
100g sugar (I used about 80g caster and 20g dark brown sugar because it was the end of a bag in my cupboard)
1 tbsp golden syrup

1. Preheat the oven to 160C fan. Grease a square brownie pan approx 20cm x 20cm.
2. In a saucepan over a low heat, melt the butter, sugar and syrup together until they are thoroughly combined. Don't panic if the sugar doesn't completely dissolve. 
3. Throw in the the oats/muesli/nuts/dried fruit that you're using and coat thoroughly in the buttery sugary goodness. 
4. Press the mixture into your prepared dish then put in the oven for around 30 minutes. The flapjack is ready once it is golden brown. Avoid over cooking as it will continue to cook once out of the oven because of the high sugar and fat content. 
5. Leave to cool for at least 5-10 minutes minutes before you mark into pieces.
6. Now leave it to cool completely before turning out of the pan otherwise you'll just get all burnt and the flapjack will fall apart. Enjoy with a nice cup of tea.

spicy quadruple ginger cupcakes with ginger cream cheese icing

This recipe is sticky, sweet and spicy and just what I like in a ginger cake. It is adapted from 'How to Cook Perfect Ginger Cake'. The ginger cream cheese is my own addition and I find it adds another spicy, creamy layer of flavour but you could experiment with citrus flavours instead, I have a suspicion that a banana flavoured frosting would be awesome too.

Cake Ingredients
100g butter
100g dark muscovado sugar

Pinch of salt
175g self-raising flour
4 tsp ground ginger
175g golden syrup or agave
1 tbsp ginger wine
2 free-range eggs, beaten
Walnut-sized piece of fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated
150g candied/crystalised ginger, finely chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 160C and grease and place the paper cases in the cupcake/muffin tin. Cream together the butter and sugar with a pinch of salt until fluffy and the colour of milky coffee.
2. Pour in the syrup and ginger wine and mix to combine.
3. Beat in the eggs then gradually sift in the flour and ground ginger. Finally, stir in the fresh and candied ginger then spoon into the prepared paper cases.
4. Bake for about 25 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
5. Allow to cool in the tin before frosting.
6. They may sink back down a little on cooling but don't worry about this. They'll still be delicious.
7. Decorate with the ginger cream cheese and some crystalised or stem ginger slivers.

 

The frosting

200g cream cheese

100g butter

600g icing sugar
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger

1 tbsp ginger wine (use milk or ginger cordial if you don't want the alcohol or miss it out completely and have a thicker icing)

1. Make sure the cheese and butter are at room temperature then beat together for a couple of minutes using and electric whisk. You want the mixture to be light and fluffy.
2. Little by little sift in the icing sugar and ground ginger beating carefully after each addition. Take care with this stage to not go too fast otherwise your kitchen will be covered in clouds of icing sugar.
3. Finally beat in the ginger wine, you may not need all of it but adjust until you have your desired consistency. 
4. This made more than enough icing for a batch of the ginger cupcakes with plenty left over for another project.

I've entered this recipe into A Kick at the Pantry Door's 'Feel Good Food Challenge'. Why not take a look at all the other great recipes featured.