Flapjacks

With thanks to Katie Stewart and AA Milne who made some good recipes in very small quantities – this multiplies their ingredients by 6.  It is Pooh’s recipe, from the Pooh Cook Book, given to me by the Elliots for Christmas in 1973.  I was 6, they were nice people, and this was a very good present.  The page is much marked – a bit like ancient parchment - and Cai has signed his name on it in 2008, an old family favourite you might say.  It is a good one to make with small children, as it is so simple (but you do have to breath deeply when the oats start scattering – and call in the dog – and sometimes when the golden syrup ends up in the pigtails, there is nothing for it, but bath time).  This was one of the few dairy free, egg free things I could make for my allergic babies - now of course they can enjoy it as Pooh intended (full of butter).  However, as there is so much of it, you could dilute the butter with sunflower oil – that is, if you have a guilty conscience.  I don’t actually think Pooh had a conscience ……….

Butter, 12oz (1½ pks, or dairy free margarine or 6oz butter & 6oz sunflower oil)

Golden Syrup, 6 rounded tbsps

Sugar, soft brown, 6oz

Melt the sugar and butter into the syrup.  It doesn’t have to boil, but make sure there are no granules and it is a smooth caramel.  Mix in;

Oats, rolled porridge ones, 24oz

Salt, big pinch

Eat some mixture ‘raw’ (essential tradition – but beware, as you can get carried away and it might not even make it into the oven - these things have happened – oh yes).  Press the remainder firmly into a small roasting tin (20x30cms), lined with non-stick baking parchment, and bake for 20 minutes on 150C.

It should have a pale golden crust.  Let it cool a little in the tin, and mark out - about 24 squares - with a sharp knife pressing down any wrinkles.  Leave it to cool completely before attempting to remove from the tin.

25 February 2013

I had to make this today as Cai ‘needed’ it after a frosty football practice under arctic floodlights and it distracted his torrent of moaning about his woeful new position and craving for ‘proper’ chocolate bars, which aren’t organic…. This, a small snapshot of our life as it is now, and a glimpse of the consequence of a little too much maternal brainwashing and the emergence of a nearly 12 yr old backlash as the realisation dawns that there is ‘another world’ out there.  That of Cadbury’s and Nestle and Coke, ah well 12 blinkered years, not bad really. 

Amanda at Nantgwynfaen Organic Farm