Flapjacks - just about

I think my favourite part of baking recently has been taking what I make in to work and having the boys in the Zoo office swarm around a cake tin stuffing their faces.

Sadly I only have nine days left working with all these great people before starting a new job at the end of February. I’ve been at Zoo for over two years and it’s going to be very tough to leave. And to make sure most of them remember me in a vaguely positive light I’m going to be baking my arse off until I go.

Tonight I decided to give flapjacks a go with help from Delia Smith. I say help but I’m not sure they’ve turned out very well and I might give these another try before feeding some hungry journos.

Delia says you need:
4oz/110g light brown soft sugar
6oz/175g unsalted butter
1 dessertspoon golden syrup
6oz/175g porridge oats
Almond essence

I say you need:
At least double all of the above apart from the butter which I think you can take about two ounces off.

Stick a medium-sized saucepan on a low heat and stir the butter, sugar and golden syrup until the butter has all melted and you get a lovely brown sticky sauce that smells amazing. Take the pan off the heat and stir in the oats with a few drops of almond essence. Grease a square tin – I used a roasting tray – and pour the mixture in, pressing it down.

Shove it in the oven for forty minutes. When I first took mine out there was lots of boiling butter floating on top, you need to let it cool for ten minutes before cutting it in to rectangles and during this time the butter sinks in. The first batch I made was terribly greasy and most of this butter ended up sloshing around the bottom of the tin.

Cutting it up is where mine fell apart, literally. It was still quite crumbly when I tried to slice it and I had to squidge some bits back down.

Before you take the flapjacks out you need to let them cool completely. The greasy first try fell apart but I used more syrup in the second lot and they seem to be sticking together a lot better but I have yet to try and take them out of the tin...

As with the Turkish delight I am weirdly zen about this going a bit wrong. I’ll give them another go tomorrow and if they don’t work I’ll try them for a third and final time next week giving me a chance to churn out a load more cupcakes.