“Odds and Ends” Flapjack

I love flapjack; it’s tasty, oats are good for you, and as this recipe proves, you can add almost anything (within reason). I had quite a few “last bits” left of a few ingredients, so decided to whack them all together in a flapjack. Apologies for the lack of precision with this recipe, I measured things in handfuls, but you really can make it up as you go along, adding a bit more of something if necessary.

 

Ingredients

• A couple of big handfuls of oats
• A big scoop of butter
• A glug of golden syrup
• A slight sprinkle of caster sugar

“Odds and Ends Ingredients” (this is just what I had left in the cupboard)

• A handful of raisins
• A handful of leftover muesli
• A handful of leftover strawberry crunch cereal
• A few pieces of honeycomb
• A handful of cashew nuts

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180°C.
• Combine all the dry ingredients in a bowl, adding a little more of anything that looks too less. It’s a good idea to have more oats than anything else as the flapjack will bind better this way.
• Next, in a saucepan, melt the butter and golden syrup over a very gentle heat.
• When the butter has just melted, carefully pour the syrup mixture over the oats and stir until fully combined.
• Ensure all the dry ingredients are covered with the syrup mixture, if not, melt a little more butter and syrup and add until it is. I had to add a little more butter, as otherwise the flapjack would have been very crumbly.
• Transfer into a lined baking tin and gently press the flapjack down.
• Bake in the centre of the oven for about 20-25 mins or until golden brown.
• Carefully take the flapjack out of the oven and with a knife, score down the flapjack where you want to divide it into pieces, then leave it to cool in the tin. This just makes it easier to cut properly once it’s fully cooled.
• Leave to cool then enjoy!

Marshmallow, Chocolate and Oat Cookies

This recipe was a bit of a “see what’s in the cupboard” type of recipe, yet the cookies turned out quite well! The marshmallow adds a nice chewy texture and chocolate is always good. If you’d like to make more oaty cookies, Ruby’s Cherry and Chocolate Oat Cookies are really good too.

 

Ingredients:

• 75g butter
• 75g caster sugar
• 75g soft light brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 150g plain flour
• a drop of vanilla essence
• 100g chocolate chips
• a couple of handfuls of mini marshmallows
• a couple of handfuls of oats

Method

• Firstly, pre-heat your oven to 180°C, and line a baking tray with baking paper ready for later.
• Cream the butter and both sugars until it’s light and fluffy.
• Add in the egg and vanilla essence and mix until smooth.
• Next, add the flour and mix until it’s just combined. Now add in the chocolate chips, marshmallows and oats until they’re all mixed in well.
• On your lined baking tray, spoon out the cookies to whatever size you like. I made mine quite small (about a tablespoon of dough per cookie) and managed to get 18 cookies out of the mixture.
• Bake for about 10-12 minutes (depending on their size).
• Be careful not to prod them too much when you take them out the oven – the melted marshmallow makes them very hot and sticky! I left mine to cool on the baking paper for a minute or two first as this make them easier to transfer onto a cooling rack.
• Leave to cool and enjoy!

 

Mini Lemon and Chocolate Meringues

Meringues are something I’ve been wanting to make for a while, but have been putting off as I don’t own an electric mixer! However, whisking them by hand didn’t take as long as I expected so don’t let that put you off. They take a while in the oven but the result is crispy on the outside, gooey on the inside loveliness. This recipe makes about 12 meringues.

Ingredients

3 egg whites

200g caster sugar

A few drops of vanilla extract

Lemon curd

Chocolate of your choice

Method

• Preheat the oven to about 110˚C
• In a large mixing bowl, whisk the egg whites until they form soft peaks, then add the vanilla essence.
• Continue whisking until the mixture becomes a bit thicker and glossy.
• Add the sugar a little bit at a time, whisking in between, until the mixture becomes thick.
• At this point, you should be able to hold the bowl upside down and the mixture won’t move – I tested this over Ruby’s head, it was tense, I wouldn’t recommend doing this!
• Once the mixture is thick and glossy, drop blobs onto a lined baking tray. I found it a bit hit and miss as to whether they looked good or not, but making small spiral movements with the spoon helped the mixture to fall off onto the tray more neatly.
• Bake in the oven for about an hour. They may take a little longer depending on their size.
• For the topping, I gently heated a couple of tablespoons of lemon curd in a saucepan until it was runny, and drizzled over the top of the meringues once they’d cooled. It helped to gently break the top of the meringue first, as this way the lemon curd falls inside the meringue too.
• After leaving the lemon curd to set slightly, carefully melt the chocolate and using a spoon drizzle over the meringues.
• Leave to set and enjoy!

Vanilla and Caramel Cakes

The cake itself is really simple to make, and the caramel topping is really tasty. You could even core out the middle of the cake and fill it with Ruby’s Caramel Sauce as well. The banana coin on these is just for decoration, but makes a really nice banoffee flavour with the sauce. This recipe makes about 12 cakes and about a jam jar’s worth of sauce.

Ingredients

For the cakes:

• 4oz self-raising flour
• 4oz marg
• 4oz sugar
• 2 eggs
• A good few drops of vanilla essence

For the Caramel Sauce:

• 5oz butter
• 5oz light brown sugar
• one 397g tin of condensed milk

Method

• Preheat the oven to about 190˚c.
• Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
• Beat in the eggs until smooth.
• Sift in the flour and combine, being careful not to knock the air out of the mixture, and add the vanilla essence whilst stirring.
• Spoon the mixture into bun cases laid out in a muffin tray.
• Bake for around 15 minutes, or until golden.
• Whilst the cakes are cooking you can start on the sauce. Melt the butter and sugar in a non-stick saucepan over a low ish heat until the butter has all melted and the sugar dissolved.
• Add the condensed milk and keep stirring carefully until the sauce just bubbles. This might take a while, but as soon as it bubbles take it off the heat.
• Allow it to cool in the pan a little, stirring occasionally.
• Once it’s cooled a little, carefully pour into a container and put in the fridge to cool properly.
• Once the cakes are cold and the sauce is ready (it’ll be quite thick now) use a spoon to blob some sauce on top of each cake. It’ll spread out by itself.
• Decorate and enjoy!

Shortbread

 

Shortbread is really simple to make and really tasty. It’s better if you leave the dough to chill in the fridge for a while, but I was impatient and baked it straight away and it turned out fine!

 

Ingredients

8 oz butter

4 oz caster sugar plus a little extra for sprinkling

4 oz cornflour

8 oz plain flour

 

Method

• Pre heat the oven to 150˚C.
  
• Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
• Sieve in the cornflour and plain flour and combine with a wooden spoon before kneading for a little while with your hands.
• If you have time, leave it to chill in the fridge for about half an hour, if not, roll the dough into a baking tin (about a 23″ tin) and prick all over with a fork.
• Cook for about 30 mins until it turns light brown.
• As soon as you take it out the oven, sprinkle a little sugar over it and leave it to cool.
• Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Cakes

Helen’s Peanut Butter Cakes

I recently bought a new icing syringe so making peanut butter cakes was the perfect excuse to test it out! The cakes are quite scone-like and are nice on their own, but the sweetness of the butter cream makes them a real treat. I added caramel chocolate drops too as they complement the peanut butter nicely.

Ingredients

75g peanut butter

25g butter (melt it a little in the microwave to make it easier to combine)

100g light brown sugar

2 eggs, beaten

125g plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

4 tablespoons milk

For the butter cream – I usually just guess with this and add more icing sugar or butter to taste.

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180˚C.
• Cream the peanut butter, butter and sugar until as smooth as possible and gradually add the eggs until it’s all mixed in.
• Next, sift in the flour, baking powder and add the milk and carefully combine.
• Spoon the mixture into bun cases, and cook for about 15 mins in the middle of the oven, or until they’re golden brown.
• Once they’ve properly cooled, decorate however you like!
• If you’re using butter cream and finding it a bit too firm, it’s a lot easier to work with if you add a drop of milk.

Helen’s Peanut Butter Cakes

Helen’s Peanut Butter Cakes

Granola Flapjack

These are really tasty and a great healthy version of flapjacks. You can change the fruit and seeds to anything you like, I used a supermarket pumpkin and sunflower seed mix. (You could even add chocolate chips!)

Ingredients

170 g light soft brown sugar

75 g golden syrup

130 g butter

75 ml fruit juice

380 g rolled oats

50 g raisins

50g sour cherries

100 g seeds

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180°C.
• Put the sugar, butter, golden syrup and apple juice in a microwaveable dish and microwave until the butter has melted.
• Once all the butter has melted and the mixture is starting to bubble, remove from the microwave and add the rest of the ingredients.
• Mix well until all the dry ingredients are covered in the syrup.
• Transfer to a greased baking tin, about an 8 by 12″, and spread out evenly.
• Bake for about 15 mins until just browning on the top.
• Once cooked, remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin.
• Cut up into squares and enjoy!

Spiced Oat Cake with Bournville Icing

                                

Helen’s Spiced Oat Cake with Bournville Icing

If you like cinnamon flavour then you’ll love this cake. The oats make it quite a hefty cake and it’s quite sweet but simple to make. It takes a little longer to make than an ordinary cake, but it’s worth it! This recipe is adapted slightly and taken from a great little book called “easy cakes & cookies” – highly recommended!

Ingredients

80g rolled oats

125g butter

230g light brown sugar

230g caster sugar

2 eggs

185g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

For the icing

200ml single cream

200g bournville (or any other dark chocolate you fancy)

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180°C
• Soak the oats in 300ml boiling water and cover with cling film for about 20 mins.
• In the mean time, cream together the butter and sugars. This might take a while as there’s not much butter compared to the amount of sugar, but persevere!
• Add one egg and beat in. If the sugar and butter aren’t combining, they will do when you add the egg.
• Add the second egg and beat.
• Next, stir in the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg. This mixture might be a little dry.
• Add in the oats, which by  now should have soaked up all the water. Mix them in until combined.
• Spoon the mixture into a greased baking tin (about an 8 inch tin will be fine), and bake for 35-40 mins until golden.
• Once it’s cooked, take it out the oven and let in sit in the tin for about 10 mins, then put it on a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the icing:

• Set a heatproof bowl over a pan of barely simmering water, making sure the bowl doesn’t touch the water.
• Pour the cream into the bowl and let it warm slightly before adding the broken up bournville and cinnamon.
• Stir the mixture constantly until all the chocolate has melted.
• Take it off the heat and let it cool for at least half an hour.
• The longer you leave it the easier it is to spread over the cake, but just stir it every so often so it doesn’t get a funny skin on it.
• Make sure the cake and icing are both fully cold before icing it.
• Spread the mixture all over with a spatula or palette knife, making any kind of pattern you like!
• Enjoy!

Cinnamon Butter

Helen’s Cinnamon Butter

This is really simple to make and is great on toast! I decided to make my own after having some amazing cinnamon toast at Bettys Tea Room in York. It keeps for ages and looks nice in a pretty Kilner jar!

Ingredients

3 tbsp caster sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

4 oz butter

Method

• Mix everything together until smooth. Easy peasy!
• Make sure you taste it and add more cinnamon/sugar to taste.

To make the toast:

• Toast one side of the bread under the grill.
• Butter the untoasted side, then put back under the grill butter side up.
• When the toast starts to brown at the edges and the butter bubbles a bit it’s ready!
• Enjoy!

Dark Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Muffins

Helen’s Dark Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Muffins

This is one of my favourite things to bake, and one of my friends’ favourite things to eat! They always go really quickly 🙂 You could try swapping the chocolate chips for different things, maybe oats, walnuts or dried fruit, or leave them out altogether!

Ingredients

10 oz plain flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

half a tsp salt

4 oz butter

8 oz sugar

2 eggs

4 mashed bananas (they’re better when they’re slightly over-ripe)

3 fl oz of butter milk (I just use normal milk with 1 and a half tsp of lemon juice)

100g dark chocolate chips

1 tsp vanilla extract

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180˚c.
• Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, mashed bananas, milk mixture and vanilla.
• Sift in the flour, bicarb, salt and chocolate chips and combine.
• Share the mixture out between about 12 muffin cases. You can always make a loaf with the mixture too, a tin about 8 inches by 5 inches should be the right size.
• Cook for about 25 mins, but use a cocktail stick or skewer to test if they’re cooked before you take them out as they might need longer.
• Cool on a wire rack for a while. They’re really nice when they’re slightly warm, as the chocolate is soft and tasty!
• Enjoy!