Easy Fruity Flapjacks Recipe

This Fruity Flapjacks recipe is quick and easy to make. It uses just a few ingredients and a little bit of time to create these delicious oaty flapjacks. They’re filled with delicious dried fruit, seeds and nuts to make a great mid-morning snack or a sweet treat for lunch boxes.

Why you want these Fruity Flapjacks

• makes a healthy snack as they’re full of good things; seeds, oats and dried fruits
• toasting the oats and the nuts before using them in the flapjack recipe released a lot more flavour into the finished bars.
• taste good – this is a healthy bar that you are going to want to eat
• better for you than a lot of highly processed snacks and you are in control of what’s in this bar
• chewy, sweet and filled with wholesome ingredients

Ingredients in this Fruity Flapjack Recipe

Sesame Seeds: These luscious little seeds lay claim to all kinds of health benefits and have been used in folk medicine for thousands of years. They add fibre to your diet, may help to lower cholesterol, are a source of protein and may help to lower blood pressure.

Sunflower seeds: These wonderful seeds also supply us with fibre, protein, vitamin E, healthy mono and poly-unsaturated fats, folate and magnesium to name only a few of the good things we get from including them in our diets.

Walnuts: These wrinkly little nuts that squirrels dig up your lawn to hide are similarly fibre and healthy-fat rich. They are a plant source of Omega-3s and wonderfully rich in antioxidants.

Oats: These are rich in vitamins and minerals, such as iron, selenium, magnesium, zinc and B1 to name just a few. They are a good source of antioxidants and fibre. However dry all that sounds, oats are good for you and extremely tasty. (See our homemade Granola Recipe and our Peanut Granola Recipe for ideas. ) I use them in all kinds of dishes, savoury included but for now, let’s talk about these oat granola bars.

Coconut Oil: Despite calling this an oil it turns out it is a hard fat much to my surprise the first time I bought it. This can be replaced by butter or a margarine that’s suitable for baking. Make them vegan-friendly by using a suitable vegan margarine that can be used for baking/

Dried fruit: This recipe uses dried fruit to add a little sweetness and a little texture. I’ve used a mixture of dried cranberries and dates as I frequently have odd amounts of these dried fruits leftover from making Granola. (See our Homemade Granola Recipe or our Peanut Butter Granola Recipe.) You may substitute your favourite dried fruit if you wish.

Muscovado sugar: Muscovado sugar is present to give sweetness and to add its gorgeous caramel-like flavour.

Golden Syrup/Maple Syrup or Honey – These are interchangeable in the recipe. and whichever one you use, they are included to add sweetness and a little flavour. The syrup keeps them just a little soft and chewy.

Cinnamon: A brilliant spice, added for its warming aromatic flavour.

The complete recipe with exact amounts is listed below.

How to make Fruity Flapjacks

These fruit, nut and seed flapjacks are very easy to make. This is a quick walkthrough of what you need to do.

• The oats and nuts are toasted in the oven for a few minutes allowing all the flavours to blossom. These are then mixed with the other ingredients.
• Start by lining an 18cm by 25cm tin with baking parchment. Allow the baking parchment to overhang the tin a little so that it makes a kind of handle which makes it easy to get the flapjacks out once they have cooked.
• Preheat the oven
• Once your oven is at temperature, place the oats and seeds on a baking tray, and place them in the oven for around 5 minutes. Then take it out, mix the ingredients around a little bit and put it back into the oven for another five minutes. We’re not looking to colour anything here.

• Use a large saucepan (it needs to accommodate the oats and nuts later), and melt the coconut oil or butter over a low heat.
• Add in the muscovado sugar and maple/golden syrup. Stir as you do this and once it has all melted, remove the pan from the heat.

• Carefully tip the toasted oats and nuts into the saucepan.
• Add in the cinnamon and dried fruit and stir until everything is coated with the syrup mixture. Tip this into the prepared tin, pushing the mixture into the corners and smoothing it down gently.
• Put this into the oven and bake for approximately 30 minutes. Keep an eye on it, you are looking for a soft golden brown colour.
• At the end of the 30 minutes, take the tin out of the oven and leave it to cool before carefully removing it from the tin to cool completely. . Don’t they smell good?
• Once cool, slice into twelve generously sized portions or more, smaller ones.

These will keep well in a tin for three or four days but I never find that they last that long once released into the wild.

Make them Different

There are a few things you can do to this recipe to make it different. Here are a few of our favourites.

1. Using chocolate chips instead of dried fruit works brilliantly.
2. Try adding 100g of chocolate chips along with the dried fruit..
3. What about a ginger, orange and chocolate version? To make this, omit the cinnamon and use 1 tsp of ground ginger and the grated zest of an orange. Once the Toasted Oat bars have cooled, melt a 150g bar of your favourite chocolate, spread it on the top and leave to set. Delicious.

Make these gluten-free

Use certified gluten-free oats and these flapjack oat bars will be perfect for you.

Storing these Oaty bars

Once cooled these Fruity Flapjacks will store well in an air-tight container for up to 4 or 5 days. I suspect they don’t last that long once your family finds them.

Please share any thoughts or photos, I’d love to see what you’ve been making.

If you like these… then you might like…

• No-bake granola bars with hazelnuts
• Maple Syrup Flapjacks
• Cocoa Flapjacks

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