Apple and Oat Shortcake Bars

I decided to make the next recipe in Annie Bell's Baking Bible Traybakes section. That was Apple and Oat Shortcake Bars. These have a shortbread base, apple and then are topped with flapjack. The recipe, as always, was very straightforward and worked nicely. However, this time I decided to make it twice and alter the recipe slightly. The full recipe I used will follow but firstly I'll talk about the recipe from the book. 

The base is a simple shortbread recipe where the ingredients are combined in a food processer until dough like. It is then chilled for a few hours and pressed into a tin before baking. 

Shortbread chilling

The apples are then sliced and mixed with currants and sugar. All sprinkled on top of the shortbread and then topped with the flapjack, which is just a case of melting butter and golden syrup and mixing with oats. 

Assembled and ready for the oven

The whole thing is then baked and enjoyed. 

Baked and cooling

I found that this fell apart too easily and was very difficult to eat. It was lovely and moist but there wasn't enough shortbread and in places you couldn't taste it at all. 

So in line with these comments I adjusted the recipe to try and improve it slightly. 

Ingredients:

Shortbread:

250g Butter

110g Sugar

352g Plain Flour

100g Currants

400g sliced cooking Apples

75g Muscavado Sugar

Flapjack:

200g Butter

200g Golden Syrup

225g Rolled Oats

Method:

Mix together the ingredients for the shortbread in a food processor. They should form a dough which is fairly sticky, not dry. 

Dough ready to be pressed into a tin and chiled

Press into a lined tin and cool in the fridge for several hours. 

Prick the shortbread with a fork and place in the oven, 140oC, for 30minutes until just beginning to colour. 

Place the sliced apples over the shortbread and sprinkle with the sugar. 

For the flapjack melt the butter and golden syrup together in a saucepan. Mix in the oats and spread the mixture on top of the apples. 

Place in the oven, 180oC, for 30minutes. The flapjack should be starting to colour. 

Cooling

Leave to cool and then slice and enjoy. 

Sliced finished product

The verdict: As you can see from the picture this shortcake held together much better than the original. The shortbread was much more promenant and tasted really good. Gary stated that if it was just the shortbread and flapjack it would be even better but I disagree. The apple adds some moisture to the cake making it less dry. I would have prefered a little more moisture but the risk would be that the cake would then fall apart so I think this was a good compromise. I give it 8/10. 

Flapjacks

One of the changes I'm going to try and make to my blog is to publish the recipes I use. In order to do this and not to be copying others I will have adjust them slightly to make them my own. This will probably involve a fair bit of trial and error but I'll always be sure to give an honest verdict at the end of the page. I will still be doing some original recipes but as before will acknowledge and give brief details rather than the full recipe.

So today's recipe is adapted from Annie Bell's Baking Bible, but I've made some changes to it to make it my own. I decided that flapjack alone is quite plain so I added sultanas and chocolate. 

Ingredients:

240g Butter

180g Demerara Sugar

225g Golden Syrup

350g Rolled Oats

Handful of Sultanas

100g Milk Chocolate

Method: 

Melt the butter, sugar and golden syrup together until the butter is fully melted and the mixture is fully combined. 

Butter melting in a pan with sugar and syrup. 

Add the oats and sultanas and mix until fully combined. Place in a 23cm brownie tin and smooth with a metal spoon. 

This is cooked in the oven for 20 minutes until it's starting to lightly brown. Cool on a rack. 

Cooling flapjack

Meanwhile melt the chocolate either in the microwave or gently in a bowl over boiling water. Pour this over the cooled flapjack. 

Cut into approximately 20 squares and serve. 

Ready flapjack. 

I've been thinking about my photography skills so I hope that the above picture makes them look appetising. 

The verdict: These are really really nice. Especially the edge pieces which are slightly more crunchy. The chocolate I used wasn't very good quality so next time I'd use proper chocolate, however, the flapjack mix its self was delicious. I did use proper butter, shocking I know, so that probably helped. I can't think of any way to improve these, other than the chocolate. I really enjoyed the addition of sultanas and chocolate and thought it added something to the recipe. I'd like to make these again some time when I'm not thinking about my diet and can eat the whole tray. 8/10 from me this week. 

Apple and Cranberry Flapjack

Gary wanted some healthier options to take to work alongside the other unhealthy offerings. I found a recipe in my pile, which was from the Weight Watchers website, for some Apple and Cranberry flapjacks.  

The recipe used Apples for all the sweetness rather than adding sugar or honey to the mix. The first step was the cook the apples in apple juice for 15 minutes until they were soft. Unfortunately I didn't have any apple juice so I just used water at this stage. 

Cooking the apples in water and spice until soft

Once these are soft puree until smooth. This recipe uses Oatmeal rather than porrige oats, these are added to the apple along with the dried cranberries. The mixture is then poured into a rectangular tin, which has been lined with greaseproof paper, and placed in the oven for 25 minutes.  

Flapjack mixture ready to go into the oven

It was then left to cool before being sliced up and boxed up.  

Flapjack just out the oven and cooling. 

Verdict: The flapjack tasted very bland and plain. There is a hint of apple but not much, in the places where there is no cranberry then it tastes quite like cardboard!! I give it 5/10. Gary gave these flapjacks  4/10 as he said that it tasted like water in places.

Whilst this is meant to be a healthy recipe and was taken from the weightwatchers website I don't believe this recipe is a good alternative. For us to be tempted to stick to our diets we need good alternatives and this certainly isn't one. Not recommended.