Serves: Makes about 25 - Time:
I’ve had rather a lot of porridge oats clogging up the shelves and, as morning porridge only uses up a handful at a time, it was a good opportunity to make a batch of flapjacks -which I think is the only way of using up half a packet of oats in one go. You’d think chocolate flapjacks would be a bit sickly but the trick is balancing the sweetness of a traditional flapjack with a little bitterness-cocoa nibs in this case. You will find them in Waitrose and online. I prefer a chewy flapjack so slightly underbake them but add on a few minutes to the cooking time if you like a crunchy square.
Ingredients
- 240g unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing
- 200g soft light brown sugar
- 100ml golden syrup
- 350g rolled oats
- 75g toasted chopped hazelnuts
- 5 tablespoons cocoa nibs
- 200g milk chocolate, broken up into small pieces
Method
- Heat the oven to 180˚c, fan oven 160˚c , mark 4. Grease and base-line a 23cm (9inch) square tin with non-stick baking parchment. Put the butter, sugar and golden syrup in a saucepan. Stir over a low heat until the butter has melted and sugar dissolved.
- Mix the oats with the hazelnuts and cocoa nibs in a large bowl and pour over the contents of the saucepan. Stir well to combine all the ingredients. Spoon into the prepared tin and level out. This is easiest to do with your fingers slightly dampened with water. Bake for about 22-25 minutes until the flapjacks are evenly golden. Leave to cool for 20 minutes.
- Melt the chocolate-either in a microwave or in a bowl placed over a pan of gently simmering water. Pour over the flapjacks and cool until the chocolate has almost set. Mark out the flapjacks into squares and leave to cool and harden. When completely cold separate the squares. Keep in an airtight tin.
