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| Third festive bake ... chocolate orange flapjack! |
Makes: At least 15 decent-sized squares.
Ingredients: 160g
soft brown sugar, 200g butter, 500g oats, 120g golden syrup, 1 orange, 2 teaspoons
of orange essence, 200g chocolate chips (or 200g chocolate hacked into small
pieces), another 400g chocolate, and festive decoration stuff.
Time taken: Half an hour to make, 15 minutes
to bake, 15 minutes for topping and decoration, and then quite a while to set
(maybe an hour or so?).
Hi readers,
Just checking in Thursday-style (i.e. with
low pep and tired eyes). Not sure about Thursdays, if I’m honest. What do you
think? How’s your Thursday panning out? Hope it’s not too terrible. Nothing BAD's happened to me this Thursday. Nothing, specifically, to strike me down. It’s just not
Friday (the best day of the week), is it?
And it’s been so long since it was last the
weekend. Four days in the scale of a lifetime doesn’t seeeem a lot, but walking into work on Monday it’s like the weekend is OVER. Gone. To lands
far far away. It’s a distant memory. Another lifetime. A different you. Left
behind…
So my week really isn't going badly! On the contrary,
I’ve been shopping for presents, and we had a chocolate meditation at yoga, and
I’ve stuck to my plan to eat marginally better than normal for a few days. Go
me! I suppose the weekends are just so much fun at the moment, what with
Christmas festivities. It makes the weekdays seem grey in comparison.
BUT once Thursday’s out the way then life is
looking preeetty rosy, I must say. There’s a cheese and wine night lined up for
tomorrow (yessss!), my Mother Bear is taking me shopping to buy a present for
ME this weekend. And me and Suzeroo are going to don Christmas jumpers for our
December meet up, and have a festive feast together on Sunday. Can’t wait.
How about you, readers? What’s on the cards
for the coming few days? Is it fine food and much merriment? With friends and the
famalam?? Or are you still grafting ahead of your festive blow out, sorting
shopping and decorating and wrapping? Either way – I hope your next few days
are filled with joy and laughter and happiness! I sincerely do.
There aren’t many days left to enjoy of 2016,
so I feel we should all start trying to make the most of every last one of them! Luckily, clever you, you’ve chosen to spent a few minutes of your day reading this blog post. A fine
decision. Today I write to you, readers, to share a recipe that came into my
life this last Sunday. ‘Twas truly a wonderful and unexpected surprise. Like the
baby Jesus.
On Sunday I had a couple of the girls
over for a cosy Christmas afternoon in. I turned on the tree during daylight
hours and lit all my festive candles, and we put our PJs on and shunned the
outside world for an afternoon. It was glorious. KatieKat brought her Love
Actually DVD and HorseyHardy brought along ingredients for a festive bake…
chocolate orange flapjack.
This recipe is favourite of KatieKat’s and
HorseyHardy’s, I gather, borne from Christmas afternoons in of years gone by.
And this flapjack BLEW ME AWAY, readers. Do you like Terry’s chocolate oranges? Do you
like flapjack? Do you like baking? Do you like Christmas?
If you answered yes to any. single. one. of these
questions then, I’m telling you, as a matter of urgency you need to get
yourself to a shop for ingredients… and get your bake on.
Want to SIGNIFICANTLY improve your Thursday? Here’s
how you can make your very own chocolate orange flapjack, in just 20 easy steps…
1.
Pour a boozy bev and heat your
oven to 200C.
2.
Measure your butter, sugar and
syrup into a pan, and melt together over a low heat.
3.
When melted into one buttery mix,
remove from the heat.
4.
Add your oats to the pan and use
a wooden spoon to stir them in, until all your oats are coated in the buttery
mix.
5.
Use a grater to grate the zest
from your orange into the pan.
6.
Then, chop your orange in half
and squeeze all its juice into the pan.
7.
Add your 2 teaspoons of orange
essence (the magic ingredient!) to the pan, and then stir everything together.
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| Put your antlers on and shake them! |
8.
Once mixed, put the pan aside to
cool a little. Top up your drink. Dance around! Sing as though you were Tina
Turner! Shake that thang!
9.
Once the mix seems to have cooled
itself down, add your chocolate chips and stirrrr these in so they’re well
distributed throughout the flapjack mix.
10. Spoon the mix into a baking tin and then use your spoon to press
it down, until the flapjack mix is evenly spread about.
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| Podge it about to get an even thickness |
11. Carefully transport your flapjack mix into the oven, and leave to
bake for 10-15 minutes until the flapjack turns golden brown on top and your
house smells godly.
12. In the meanwhile, get your pots washed and why not mull some wine?
When you’re in your kitchen, with ten minutes to spare, in December… Mull. Some.
Wine.
ChefBeHere Top Tip: If, like myself at the
time of baking, you find yourself attempting a festive recipe but unable to
drink alcohol – do not fear. KatieKat brought some non-alcoholic mulled wine
over on Sunday, and it was lush! Found in a Dobbies garden centre, I believe,
but keep your eyes peeled they could be selling it all over the place.
13. Once your flapjack looks and smells like it’s certainly well baked,
safely take it out of the oven and then switch the oven off.
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| What a bake... beeeeautiful |
14. Leave your flapjack to cool a little on the side, and while it’s
cooling you can break your 400g of chocolate up into squares.
ChefBeHere Top Tip: Depending on whether you
prefer a milk chocolate Terry’s or a dark chocolate Terry’s (or you just love
them both in equal measure!) – feel free to use either all milk choc, all dark
choc, or a combo of milk and dark choc – to your taste.
15. Either microwave your chocolate, or pop it in a bowl over a pan of
boiling water, to melt your chocolate.
16. Pour the melted chocolate over your flapjack until it’s coated
entirely.
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| So. Much. Chocolate. |
17. Use total artistic license here and top your flapjack with something
festive. It might be that you want to rest actual segments of a Terry’s
chocolate orange on top, or maybe you have some crystallised orange peel to
chuck on there, tiny sprigs of holly… anything goes! We went for golden
sprinkles, and this looked nice I’d say.
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| Golden! |
18. Once your flapjack is looking mightily festive, and you can do no
more, then carefully transport it into the fridge to set.
ChefBeHere Top Tip: For those of your out
there with a dodgy fridge – hollaaa join the club! Honestly, we put ours in the
freezer for a good portion of Love Actually, and this did it no harm. Flapjack
is a hardcore bake. Put your flapjack in the coolest location you have, so that
it will set as quickly as possible, but try not to ACTUALLY freeze it in the
process.
19. Once the chocolate topping your flapjack is firm to touch and
feels pretty darn solid, pause your film and take it out of the fridge /
freezer / igloo.
ChefBeHere Top Tip: At this point, we sprayed
it with a load of shimmer spray. Just because I had shimmer spray! And
HorseyHardy had never seen it used before! This is entirely optional – but if
you have shimmer spray – I say why not??
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| So shimmery! |
20. Then, tip your flapjack out of its tin and cut into squares – as
many as you like depending on how big or little you would like them to be. Serve
to guests, share with friends / family / colleagues / housemates / the
homeless, or Tupperware to live for another day.
Adapted from an original recipe, which can be found here.
What do you think?? After all my gushing, I
hope this recipe doesn’t let you down, readers. Because – to me – it tastes
just wonderful! There’s that homely, comforting, oaty taste of the flapjack. And
a rich, sweet flavour coming from the SERIOUS amount of chocolate involved. And
then the fresh, zingy citrus kick of all the orange in there. Glory!
Once you overcome the hurdle of finding the
magic ingredient, orange essence, which I know isn’t something you can pick up
at the corner shop – then it’s just simple ingredients otherwise and straightforward
steps. An easy, fun bake which tastes gorrrrgeous if you’re asking me. Tis a
must-have addition to your festive baking schedule, readers.
I sparred with HorseyHardy trying to get her
to leave as little flapjack behind, as she possibly would, when heading home in
the evening. Because it wasn’t safe with me. I’d be on it like the Vicar of
Dibley. My heart couldn’t take double digit numbers of flapjack squares. BUT she
insisted on leaving a few squares. And sure enough… half an hour later.
My chocolate orange flapjack didn’t make it
into the evening – let alone into work! Let’s see how long yours lasts.
Do mull safely,
Hayley
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| Do it! |
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