Banana, Date & Cherry Flapjacks

pmpmaloney

These flapjacks are made using a recipe I stole, then adapted, from a mountain-biking forum. They are great energy food when exercising.

Two words of warning…
First, these are not the golden sticky sweet variety bought from supermarkets and service stations across the globe. There’s no syrup or refined sugary muck holding these together.
Second, don't use regular porridge oats for these - it turns to a slab of rubbery horribleness. Not Good. Use nice rolled jumbo oats, the sort your grandma used to soak for a week then cook for her porridge!

I make a batch of these and freeze them straight away. Then, when I’m going for a hike or bike ride I whip one out of the freezer, wrap it up, and pop it in my bag to be defrosted by the time I need it.

Anyhow…

Ingredients:

600g approx Ripe Bananas (Approx 6 x medium) (630kcal)
625-650g approx Whole Jumbo Oats (e.g. Jordans in the UK) NOT PORRIDGE OATS – MUST BE WHOLE JUMBO OATS. (2300kcal)
10ml Vanilla Essence (19kcal)
200g Pitted Dates – Roughly chopped into thirds. Make sure no stones slip through. (554kcal)
200g Glace Cherries – chopped into halves. Again, make sure no stones slip through. (612 kcal)
30g Butter (216kcal)
20g Soft Dark Cane Sugar (78kcal)

Total 4409 kcal, or 220kcal per slice (20 slices)

1. Preheat your oven to 180 Celcius.

2. Line a large 1" deep baking tray with greaseproof paper, including up the sides, and then use HALF of the butter to give the paper a further wipe over to try to stop these sticking.

3. Start by putting the chopped dates, chopped cherries, brown sugar and the other half of the butter into a saucepan, on a gentle heat. The aim is to soften the fruit a bit so it mixes in better. I also add a tablespoon or two of boiling water sometimes if it starts to get a bit dry. You want a nice gooey fruit mix. Yummy.

4. While the fruit is softening, get mashing your bananas into a pulp in as big a bowl or pan as you have. This is going to make a lot of mixture!

5. Add your vanilla essence to the pulped bananas.

6. Once your fruit is softened, add it to the banana/vanilla mixture, and stir it well to combine it all.

7. Now start to add your oats, a little at a time, stirring it all well to distribute the banana and fruit evenly through the gloop, and to make sure there’s no pockets of dry oats left.

This mixture gets pretty heavy, pretty quickly. Be prepared for a lot of hard stirring to combine the full quantity of oats with the fruit.

You are aiming for a mixture that easily forms big sticky lumps – definitely not runny!

8. Once mixed together, spoon the mixture into your lined baking tray and press it down firmly with a wooden spoon, making sure it’s of even thickness – about half an inch / 15mm is ideal.

9. Bake at 180 Celcius for 25-30 minutes, checking and turning around halfway through, until a nice medium brown colour on top.

10. Remove from the oven, allow to cool for 10 minutes before removing from the tray and allowing to cool completely on a wire rack.

11. Once cool, turn over, peel off the greaseproof paper, and then cut into 20 squares.

When freezing these, I put them back on the wire cooling rack, so they are not touching each other, then freeze them on the rack. That way they don’t freeze together in one big lump. Once frozen solid, I put them loose into a bag or box in the freezer and just pick out one or two as needed.

karentalty

Sounds great!!