Revealed: The secret to flapjacks that don’t fall apart (2024)

FAQs

Revealed: The secret to flapjacks that don’t fall apart? ›

The main reason flapjacks fall apart is the ratio of dry ingredients to liquid ingredients. You need enough sticky liquid ingredients to bind the dry together.

Sprinkle with a tiny bit of sea salt. 4 Spread the mixture out, pressing it out evenly with the back of the spoon. 5 Bake for 25 minutes until golden. After five minutes cooling, press the flapjacks with something heavy and flat (this compresses them and stops them falling apart).

For me, too much golden syrup makes them hard to bite through and dunking is simply not an option with flapjacks. Golden syrup can also make flapjacks sickly sweet. Cooking times and oven temperature are important.

This is entirely up to you. Golden syrup is the chewiness activator in a flapjack recipe, so if you want extremely chewy results, add an extra half a tablespoon to this recipe, with 5g less caster sugar. When the flapjacks are pale golden and still very soft to the touch, remove them from the oven.

The word flapjack is believed to come from flipping, or "flapping," the cake on a griddle. Definitions of flapjack. noun. a flat cake of thin batter fried on both sides on a griddle. synonyms: battercake, flannel cake, flannel-cake, flapcake, griddlecake, hot cake, hotcake, pancake.

Use as a crumble topping for fruit, yogurt, ice cream. Or sundae - layers of fruit, yogurt and crumble. Or custard.

Why are my Flapjacks Hard? Over-boiling the sugar, butter and syrup, is one possible reason for flapjacks being so hard. Simmering the butter-sugar-syrup mixture on low heat is better. Adding flour helps make them chewy and soft.

I find it best to store flapjacks in the fridge so that they stay firm. You can also store them in an air-tight container in a cupboard but they may break apart more easily. They will keep for 10 days in the fridge. I find in Winter, they are fine stored in a cupboard, but in Summer, they need to go in the fridge.

Granny's Top Tips

Just be sure to grease your tin first (so the greaseproof paper sticks to it). And be careful to make sure your entire tin is lined, with no gaps – if your flapjack seeps through the greaseproof paper it will stick to the tin! Another change I've made to the recipe is the quantity of butter.

Put it in the oven for 20-25 minutes. It should look a bit runny still, because it will keep cooking in the tin for another five minutes. Leave it to cool for ten minutes and then cut it into 12 pieces.

Should flapjacks bubble in the oven? ›

The flapjacks are cooked once the edges are golden and only the middle wobbles. They may look slightly bubbly on top, this is normal. If you overbake the flapjacks they will be hard and crumbly, rather than soft and chewy. Make sure you let the flapjack cool fully before adding the topping.

The lumps form because flour contains gluten, a sticky substance that activates when it gets wet and mixed. If gluten is over-mixed it becomes tough, rubbery, and unappetizing.

Run a knife round the edge to release the flapjack, leave for 5 minutes, then mark into bars or squares. Leave in the tin until nearly cold before cutting into pieces and removing to a wire rack. The flapjacks will keep in an airtight tin for up to 10 days.

More fat (butter) is the answer. I use gluten free oats as some of my children are Coeliac and I always had problems with flapjacks being far too hard. I found that increasing the amount of butter over the recipe amount made a lot of difference...

In other English-speaking countries, the same item is called by different names, such as cereal bar, oat bar or (in Australia and New Zealand) oat slice. In the United States and Canada, "flapjack" is a widely-known but lesser-used term for pancake.

In the UK, the word pancakes refers to the same thing, but the word flapjacks refers to something entirely different: a baked good made from oats, resembling what elsewhere may be called a granola bar or oat bar. The word flapjack is traced back to the late 1500s.

Cartoon Network's reasoning for canceling the show was because Flapjack didn't match with its new lineup of shows for a young male-targeted demographic. The inspiration from The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack was obvious within the world of cartoon animated shows for the next 10 years.

Why do my homemade flapjacks fall apart? This can happen if you overcook or undercook your flapjacks. When you overcook a flapjack, the golden syrup dries out and it becomes crumbly. An undercooked flapjack will have a raw doughy texture that doesn't hold its shape.

Two main likely sources of this problem: when you put the mixture into the baking tin you need to press it down hard with eg. the back of a tablespoon. If there are lots of air pockets it will be crumbly, not much you can do about that after the event, though you can try pressing it down hard now and see if that helps.

The second batch when they crumbled I thought it was because of me adding a bit of water so rebaked them. To make them a bit more gooey add more syrup only. Also what type of oven are you using, if it is a fan then make sure you lower the temperature and possibly give less cooking time. Hope this helps.

Can I use condensed milk instead of golden syrup? ›

As sweetened condensed milk is slightly runnier than golden syrup, you may need to adjust for this in your recipe by reducing the volume of other liquids, e.g. milk or water in your recipe. Otherwise, you can use a 1:1 swap.

Lining the baking tin with parchment paper makes it easy to remove the flapjacks. Once they have cooled in the tin you can slide the whole flapjack on its paper onto a board to cut into pieces.

How often to water your Flapjacks. Flapjacks needs 0.8 cups of water every 12 days when it doesn't get direct sunlight and is potted in a 5.0" pot.

Leave in the tin until nearly cold before cutting into pieces and removing to a wire rack. The flapjacks will keep in an airtight tin for up to 10 days.

I made flapjack today, greased the tin et voila, no sticking. You're either cooking too long or miscalculating ingredients. I don't use paper (have had similar experiences) - juts goes straight in a greased tin. The recipe is important too.