My brother Colin and his daughter Joanna came to stay with us in France for ten days in August. They are both keen and accomplished cooks. Jo, who is not quite eighteen yet, made some delicious meals for us, including a ratatouille pasta bake and a mushroom risotto. She also enjoys baking cakes and one of the things she made was a tray of rhubarb flapjack.
Having discovered the jars of rhubarb compote on French supermarket shelves, we always now keep some in. The French seemingly must eat a lot of compote. You can find jars and tins of all many varieties, the most popular being apple, but there is always a good supply of rhubarb and apricot as well.
Last Christmas Jo gave me a jar of flapjack mix for a present, using her recipe, for me to bake myself. They were her original apricot flapjacks using dried fruit and were delicious. These flapjacks are a variation on that recipe.
It makes a tray of gorgeous chewy flapjack with a layer of rhubarb in the middle. Jo used to make the apricot version most weekends when she worked in a local café and apparently they always sold out early. I can see why!
This month’s Alphabakes Challenge is the letter ‘J’, organised by Caroline of Caroline Makes and Ros of The more than occasional baker. You can see the details here.
Jo’s rhubarb flapjacks
Ingredients
75g plain flour*
200g butter
125g muscovado sugar**
3½ tsp honey or golden syrup
150g porridge oats
A few tblsp fruit compote or dried fruit puréed
Method
Grease a 20 x 15cm baking tin. Preheat the oven to 180°C / 160° fan.
Mix the flour and oats together in a large bowl.
Put the butter into a small saucepan, add the sugar and honey and heat gently until they are all melted together.
Mix the wet and dry ingredients until combined.
Spoon half of the mixture into the tin and spread it out. Spread a thin layer of the fruit compote on top. Spoon the rest of the flapjack mixture over that and spread out evenly.***
Bake for 25-30 minutes until golden on top and firm to the touch.
Turn out carefully onto a wire rack, so that the flapjack doesn’t break apart. Cut into the size of slice you want when it is just warm to the touch.
Serve warm with custard, or cold.
*Wholemeal flour would also work.
**Caster sugar may also work.
***If the fruit is very runny, put the tray in the fridge for it to firm up and warm the flapjack topping in the microwave to make the spreading easier.
Cuts into 6-10 pieces, depending on how large you like them.
They sound very fine to me. I love rhubarb but I don't think I've ever eaten it in a flapjack - yet. I must admit that I found the habit of stirring compote into fromage blanc was an easy one to get into during my days in France whenever I was in need of a quick dessert (and I often have that need).
ReplyDeleteI am a flapjack officionado (?sp). Fortunately I make more than I eat! I will certainly try out this recipe. Jo's brownies were excellent. I love rhubarb so this makes a nice change.
ReplyDeleteOoo I LOVE the sound of these - anything with rhubarb is a hit as far as I'm concerned, but I do like a flapjack.
ReplyDeleteI just made these. I didn't have a small enough tin, or enough ingredients to double the recipe, so I just stretched it a bit into a 20cm square cake tin. I had difficulty extracting them from the tin and had to reconstruct one corner, but they are very tasty and the texture is excellent. I used apple and rhubarb.
ReplyDeleteWe love rhubarb, and what a great way to use it. They look great.
ReplyDeleteGreat idea adding rhubarb compote to the flapjack. Thanks for entering AlphaBakes.
ReplyDelete