A very English flapjack

I interrupt raspberry transmission with another blog post for the Norse Goddess. It turned out when we were visiting in Vancouver that she hadn't come across a flapjack before - or not an English type one anyway. So in the spirit of sharing culture, I hastened to make some so I could share the recipe.

Yes, I am pretending I've made M&S flapjack bites. What of it?

I've made flapjacks several times recently but have never actually blogged about them. Plus I've never made the same recipe twice and so don't have a particular favourite. Even Marcus Wareing's (which I mentioned in passing as a gamers' treat) was felt to be 'as good as another flapjack but not outstanding' by my Scientist Connoisseur of All Things Butter and Syrupy. He's quite strict in his requirements for flapjack, which actually, are quite similar to his requirements for trifle: keep it simple. I found a good and simple recipe on the website of Lyle's Golden Syrup - (so many good words) - makers of sugar and syrup, and felt there was no better a place to start my search for the latest offering for the Gamers.


Flapjack, is essentially, melted butter, sugar and golden syrup with oats stirred into it, and baked. You can see why it's a favourite really, can't you? In America, however (as I learnt here) it is a sweet flatbread cooked on a griddle. Madness. It's no wonder the Norse Goddess was confused. The smell of all that lovely golden meltingness does smell pretty alluring even for someone like me who's not so fussed about eating the finished product. This recipe evidently got its proportions just right as the flapjacks were a hit and I am happy to make it my go-to fave. Of course you can add all sorts of extras - dried fruit, seeds, nuts, chocolate all work, and there are approximately a squillion other recipes on the web featuring other goodies. But not if you're eating it in this house, ok?

Lyle's Golden Syrup recipe here

Trev's requests - cherry choc chip cookies and a new carrot cake

The Scientist went gaming again this weekend, so it was time for me to get baking. I had a special set of requests this time though, as one of the other gamers, Trev, was celebrating getting through a very long period of pretty nasty health-related stuff. The Scientist asked what his top picks would be and he came straight back with carrot cake, and cherry choc chip cookies. Time to go recipe-hunting.


I've made a few carrot cakes for the gamers in the past, variously featuring banana, pineapple and (inadvertently) semi-raw dough. This time I looked up whether Nigel Slater had a take on carrot cake as I've just been reading his Eating for England which I'd really enjoyed. He does indeed, right here, and it's a pretty traditional one - no extras except walnuts, which I left out because of the usual nut allergy. Everything went fine with the baking, and as you can see, it was sandwiched together with some gloriously unctuous cream cheese icing. The Scientist took some more with him and iced the top when he arrived. The cake was enjoyed by all, but it was the icing which was the real hit. Definitely a keeper basic carrot cake recipe though - Nigel won true again.


For the cookies I decided to go extra decadent and make this red wine and cherry choc chip cookie I'd seen on Cookie Madness. It made an absolute pile of cookies, and while the batter was on the sticky side, it baked exactly as directed. I even made some with no cherries in them to accommodate the no-dried-fruit gamer. I was so pleased with myself - until I found out that Trev really really hates red wine! He did try them and thought they were quite nice, but I know he appreciated the thought. And the others absolutely loved them - the whole pile got scarfed in no time and they've been promoted to the top of the double choc chip cookie list.


Nigel Slater's carrot cake recipe here

Cookie Madness' post on the red wine cherry choc chip cookies (with link to the original recipe) here

Jaffa drizzle cake

I've wanted to make this cake for ages - it was from a supplement to the Good Food magazine ages ago, but it's taken until now to find an opportunity. In the meantime Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes had blogged about how good it was, so its credentials had been raised even further. As usual, the opportunity was The Scientist going gaming, and it didn't take long to convince him it was a good bet (approximately as long as it took to say the word 'jaffa' and 'cake' in fact).



Frankly, this cake has everything going for it. It's about the easiest cake you could imagine - bung everything in a bowl, beat and bake. It's orangey. It has orange syrup on the top. AND it has dark chocolate on the top of the orange syrup. The recipe said it would keep for up to a week but I can't imagine any circumstances where it would need to. I asked The Scientist when he got back if it counted as a 'Gamers' Favourite' and he said a definite yes. Mind you, I haven't found a cake which hasn't been a Gamers' Favourite since I started that label. I love baking for these people!


I'm also featuring the other goodies I made for them: chocolate digestives. I loved the taste of the dough for these biscuits - they tasted exactly like the real thing. I baked them for slightly too long by mistake as I didn't hear the oven timer going off from upstairs, but covered in chocolate they were perfectly passable. And yes, they were Gamers' Favourites too :) BUT - I can't remember where I got the recipe from!! I'm rather upset about this as they were so nice, but if I turn it up again I will definitely blog it.


Jaffa drizzle lof (from BBC Good Food Magazine supplement): recipe here

New best carrot cake

I've been in the market for a new carrot cake recipe for a while. I used to have a great standby one from a leaflet I picked up at a supermarket checkout one time, but I haven't made it for a few years, as it turned out a bit gooey a few times on the trot. Personally I quite like gooey, within reason, but The Scientist isn't keen, and I've got to admit that veering that close to uncooked egg doesn't thrill me. I tried a Delia recipe for him to take gaming a year or so ago, but also had problems with cooking it through (as well as a whole manner of other problems I don't wish to revisit any time soon). This time I wanted to try one with pineapple in it too, after The Scientist tried a good one in a cafe. It just so happened that this vague yen coincided with our Vet Friends giving me not one, but two, great cookbooks for my Christmas present. The first was James Martin's dessert cookbook, which does feature a very fancy looking carrot cake, complete with caramelised baby carrots on the top - but no pineapple. The other was Simon Rimmer's new book, which coincidentally DOES have a carrot cake with pineapple.


Simon Rimmer is the chef at Green's restaurant in Didsbury, Manchester, which I've never been to, but have heard very good things about. I don't think it's particularly known for its desserts, but if this cake is anything to go by, it should be. For one thing, it avoided the under-cooking thing. In fact it cooked perfectly in the time it was supposed to. I'm sure the fact that you make two cakes to sandwich together rather than one large one helped, but still, I like a chef whose cakes bake how they're supposed to. It was also moist (I'm sure I use this word to describe all my favourite cakes - see the comment above on gooeyness, I suppose. I just asked The Scientist how he'd describe it, and he said succulent, which sounds much nicer). It was also hefty as a whole, but the cake itself was quite light. Am I making any sense? Just go and make it. And make the icing, too. It's not remotely vegan, but the people I was making it for aren't remotely vegan either, and they loved it. I've started a new label for 'gamers' favourites', so I can find the most requested treats for The Scientist's gaming weekends again easily. This one's definitely up there.

And since I mentioned it, the James Martin book is really good too - lots of tips on how to do cheffy decorating things and some lovely looking recipes. I'm hoping to try some of them very soon :)


Simon Rimmer's does as it says on the baking instructions carrot cake (from The Seasoned Vegetarian)

Feeds 10 (or 8 gamers)

300g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarb of soda
1 tsp salt
175g light muscovado sugar
50g walnuts [I left these out as one of the gamers has a nut allergy]
227g can pineapple, drained and finely chopped
3 eggs
handful of sultanas [I left these out too as one of the other gamers doesn't like dried fruit. Picky lot aren't they?]
2 soft bananas, mashed
175g carrots, grated [this was about two]
175ml corn oil [I used vegetable]

Soft cheese icing
100g butter, softened
200g icing sugar, sifted
100g cream cheese
1 vanilla pod, split lengthways
ground cinnamon, for dusting

Preheat the oven to 160C/Gas 3. Prepare two greased and lined 20cm sandwich tins

Sift the flour, baking powder and bicarb of soda together into a large bowl, then add the rest of the cake ingredients and mix well. Divide the mixture between the tins.

Bake the cake for 30-35 minutes, or until risen and firm to the touch

Leave to cool for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and allow to cool completely before icing

For the cream cheese icing, beat together the butter, sugar and cream cheese, then scrape in the seeds from the vanilla pod. Spread half the icing on top of one cake, then place the other cake on top and spread with the remaining icing. Dust lightly with cinnamon.

Epicurean shortbread fingers

I asked The Scientist what he would like me to make him for a trip recently, and he pretty promptly settled on shortbread 'like the sort you get in packs with a cup of tea'. I was quite pleased he felt so strongly about it - I haven't felt very decisive about cooking recently and this way there was no chance I could keep myself awake fretting over the merits of cookies versus bars. Well, less chance at least. I fretted over what to do with the rest of our veg box carrots instead. I've made shortbread bases before - for the millionaire's shortbread I made Eco Sis, for example, but I've always been put off the most traditional standalone recipes because they call for rice flour. My baking cupboard is in enough of a state without allowing myself to buy more speciality ingredients, and we only have brown rice in the house, which probably wouldn't make for a nice fluffy tea time treat.


A couple of weeks ago though, we went to Coventry for a little shopping trip, and I wandered into the market in search of a weigh-shop I knew was there. You know the sort of place - lots of bins of household goods that you help yourself to, and then pay according to weight. This sort of place is my idea of nirvana, and The Scientist was soon weighed down with little bags, with a tolerant expression on his face. The things you can get though! Cake mix! It had never previously occurred to me that you would want to buy cake mix by weight, and with no instructions. Six different types of breakfast cereal, tapioca, flour, washing powder (better not get those two mixed up), custard powder, nuts, spices - and it's only a small shop. I bought at least five or six different things, none of them big, but still, I wasn't expecting change from a fiver. £1.60. I kid you not. I wish we lived in Coventry - and I have never said that before (though I said it again when we found a nice little noodle place for lunch).


Anyway, you may have guessed that I have included this whimsical digression because one of the things I found at the weigh place was rice flour, so I could make the shortbread. Recipes for shortbread seem pretty ubiquitous but I wanted to make sure I hit the maximum heights, so I got out our copy of Marcus Wareing's How to Cook the Perfect... We've never eaten at a Michelin starred restaurant - try that on two academics' salaries with a fusspot semi-vegan as part of the party - but we like Marcus Wareing when he appears on cheffie programs, and his book includes little tips on how to get the best out of the recipe. In this case, it was handle the butter as little as possible, and rub it into the rest of the ingredients by grating it and rolling it all between your palms. The Scientist had been so particular about the shape of the shortbread that I got him to cut it, but - alas - when I took them out of the pan one broke and he was forced to try it. Let's just say that Marcus Wareing is still number one top chef dude in our house. I made his flapjack recipe at the same time, which directs you to part-bake it, then take it out and drizzle melted syrup over the top before returning to the oven. This makes the top moist and the middle crunchy apparently. Or the other way round; I forget. I'll report back on whether that worked when The Scientist gets back. In the meantime I still have those carrots to attend to.

Marcus Wareing's shortbread (from How to Cook the Perfect...)
Makes about 20 pieces

200g plain white flour
Pinch of fine salt
40g ground rice
75g caster sugar, plus extra for dusting
175g unsalted butter, from a chilled 250g block

Sift the flour and salt into a bowl and stir in the ground rice and sugar. Grate in the butter, then work it quickly into the flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Press the mixture into a 20cm square baking tin and level the top. Chill in the fridge for about an hour.

Heat the oven to 140C fan/160C/Gas 3

Bake the shortbread for 40 minutes until light golden. Remove from the oven and prick all over with a fork, then mark into 20 pieces, cutting right through to the bottom of the tin. Dust liberally with caster sugar, then leave to cool before removing from the tin.

Gamers' golden date slice

The Scientist went off on one of his gaming jaunts last weekend, accompanied by baked goodies as usual. He and his friends are delighted to receive any baked stuff I care to provide, which makes for a very enjoyable relationship all round. I strongly suspect that I am 'the mad baking girlfriend' but I think that's a role I can live with :)


This time there had been a special request for a recipe which one of the gamers had passed on from his mum. It's a date and carrot cake, and is always known in our house as (in hallowed tones) 'Gaming Steve's Mum's Cake'. I think she called it a Golden date slice. It's one of those heavy, moist, gingerbread-type cakes and if I'm being a little vague about how it tastes it's because I'm not sure if I've ever actually had any myself (it seems a little rude to send a cake with a nibble taken out of it!). I can, however, say that the batter is truly magnificent, and it is very very popular with The Scientist and his buddies. Hell, The Scientist starts drooling when I get the golden syrup out of the cupboard!


I asked them to take a photo of a slice of it when they ate it, and Steve himself very sweetly set up a whole photography platform to showcase it. He used the camera on his phone which seems to be a better quality one than my actual camera. As you might expect given my profession, I am not the most up-to-date when it comes to tech!

Gaming Steve's Mum's Cake (aka Golden Date Slice)
With thanks to Steve's mum!

6oz Stoneless Dates

6oz Margarine

6oz Demerara Sugar

3 oz (Approx 6 Level Tablespoons) Golden Syrup

10oz Self Raising Flour

½ Level Teaspoon Salt

2 Level Teaspoons Cinnamon

8oz Finely Grated Carrots

3 Eggs Medium to Large

2 Tablespoons Demerara Sugar


1. Heat oven to 325f/160c/gas mark3.

2. Grease a square 8" cake tin & line with grease proof paper.

3. Roughly chop dates.

4. Place margarine, demerara sugar & syrup into a large saucepan over a low heat until the margarine has melted, then remove from the heat.

5. Sift flour, salt & cinnamon into the pan, mix well with a wooden spoon.

6. Beat eggs, add to pan & mix thoroughly.

7. Stir in dates and carrots.

8. Pour into the prepared tin, level if needed.

9. Sprinkle the 2 tablespoons of demerara sugar over the top of the mixture.

10. Bake cake in the centre of the oven for 1 hour 30 minutes to 1 hour 50 minutes, the cake is cooked when it springs back when pressed and the sides have begun to shrink back from the tin.

11. Remove from the oven and cool in the tin. Once cooled, turn out and remove paper, wrap cake in foil and leave for two days (if you can wait that long) for it to develop its flavour.


It keeps for approximately 2 weeks if wrapped in foil and stored in a container (ha! Like it ever gets the chance!)