It's not a cookie! Lets call it a sugar-less flapjack?

Let's deviate into baking for a moment, and assume that we're making things for people who don't want to take sugar, like me. This can be very difficult! As a first attempt, here's a go at (heavily) adapting the chunky cookies as found in Hamlyn's Student Cookbook (ISBN 978-0-600-60965-0, page 215). To do this you're going to need a bunch of ingredients, a couple of baking trays and some greaseproof/baking paper:

125g oats;
125g plain flour;
3 tablespoons sesame seeds;
3 tablespoons sunflower seeds;
3 tablespoons sliced dried apricots;
2 tablespoons sliced dried dates;
2 tablespoons walnut pieces;
Some vanilla essence;
75g butter;
100g honey;
4 tablespoons vegetable oil;
1 egg, lightly beaten (you might need a fraction of an egg more).

Step 1: Heat the oven 180C, Gas Mark 4, 350F. (I like 160C personally.)

Step 2: Mix together the oats, flour, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, dried fruits and walnuts in a bowl.

Step 3: Melt the butter and honey in a very large saucepan, then take it off the heat.

Step 4: Add the dry mix into the saucepan of buttery honey, mix, then add the oil and egg and combine again. If the mixture looks too wet then add some more oats or flour.

Step 5: You should be able to make 10 large flattened round flapjacks and place them on your papered baking tray. Or two batches of five using one baking tray.

Step 6: Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes until golden but still slightly soft. Leave to cool and then they'll crisp up.

The resulting flapjacks are phenomenally full of all kinds of goodness and butter, and actually quite tasty once you get used to the milder sweetness. There's potential for cocoa powder and date variants, as well as many other options. Just be creative!

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It's nice to bake again. Who knows why I stopped? Lots of things stopped after Hungary. In any case, please try out the flapjacks, and if you aren't off sugar then swap it in quantity-for-quantity with the honey. In a bizarre twist today I began to do research again and am feeling quite chipper, despite all the programming. Oh, the programming!

Coming up soon on the Quirky Muffin there will be more of the serialised story 'Wordspace', more of the holiday extracts and very soon some thoughts on the great Columbo episode 'A Stitch In Crime'.

You're reading in a strange land!

O.