3 O’clock and those afternoon hunger pangs strike, the banana you put in the top of your bag this morning somehow found it’s way to the bottom and isn’t so appetising anymore… It can be difficult to find healthy snacks when away from home, the vending machine in the office a nutritional wasteland and even the healthy options in the shops are often ultra processed and loaded with artificial ingredients. The good news is it’s easier and quicker than you might think to make your own.
Portable and freezable these fab flapjacks, I adapted slightly from a Lorraine Pascale favourite of mine. Full of fibre for gut health, packed with vitamins and minerals, with no refined sugar but all the srumptiousness.
Makes 16, prep time 10 minutes, cooking time 20
Ingredients
- Zest of 1 small orange
- 1tsp cinnamon
- 175g pitted dates
- 250g porridge oats
- 50g desicated coconut
- 20g sesame seeds
- 50g sunflower seeds
- 50g pumpkin seeds
- 100g of nuts of your choice, roughly chopped.
- 100g dried apricots chopped (raisins, sultanas or dried cranberries work well too)
- 3tbsp coconut oil or butter, melted
- Pinch of sea salt
- 240ml water
1.
Preheat the oven to 180°C (fan 160°C/350°F/gas 4) and line a 20cm square baking tin with baking parchment. I make sure there is some extra baking parchment hanging over the edges – this makes it easier to pull out the flapjacks once they are ready.
2.
Put the dates in a blender, add the water and blitz to a paste. Tip this into a large bowl along with the nuts, oats, apricots/dried fruit, orange zest, salt, cinnamon, sesame, sunflower, and pumpkin
seeds. Mix to combine and then stir in the coconut oil or butter.
3.
Tip the mixture into the lined tin and squish it down with a wooden spoon or spatula, give it some pressure, this will stop the flapjacks from falling apart when you cut them. Using a sharp knife, mark out sixteen squares and pop the flapjacks into the oven for 18–20 minutes.
4.
When the flapjacks are baked, remove them from the oven and leave them to cool a little bit. Carefully remove them from the tin using the overhanging baking parchment. Cut into the sixteen squares to serve.
Once cut up they freeze well, just get them out of the freezer to defrost half an hour before you want to eat one.
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