2011-09-17 Sat - Clacton-on-Sea - Last Ride of the Summer

A lovely day of dodging rain-clouds through still-lush countryside. The first whiff of fresh grassy scent as we left london, and and later the first tang of the sea on the breeze. Not too hot, but still a good dose of vitamin D to lift our spirits into the autumn. The pace was just about perfect for me, i think we stuck together quite well as a group, and everyone was good company. Thanks again John for organising.

http://www.atoptics.co.uk/ is a wonderful website of atmospheric optical effects.

Flapjack recipes:

For normal (fatty) flapjacks, i think this recipe deserves its high place on google, and was the starting point for my experiments. I can't claim to have been as scientific - the following is approximately the first thing i tried. It seemed to work so i've stuck with it.

M25 orbital flapjacks. Low fat (potentially vegan even).

75g light brown sugar
75g golden syrup
300g banana (3 medium size ones)
optional: 4 tablespoons Horlicks original malted milk drink.
(This is the only dairy, non-vegan ingredient.)
50g / about 3 table spoons tahini
(sesame paste - i found mine on the 'world foods' shelves of a medium-large tesco)
250g Dorset Cereals Fruits, Nuts and Seeds muesli
(a lazy way of getting lots of interesting ingredients in - a mix of cereals, nuts, seeds and dried fruit that you'd probably spend more attempting to replicate.)
150g porridge oats
(the cheap chopped floury sort - to help glue everything together)
100g or so of whole rolled oats
(stretch out the expensive muesli a bit).

Line a baking tray with baking paper. (I've got a 9" x 12" tray that's about right, but it's fine to use part of a larger tray as this mix easily holds its shape.)

Mix syrup and sugar in a large saucepan with a tablespoon of water and heat gently. Meanwhile liquidise the banana and Horlicks with a blender. When the sugar has dissolved and begun to boil, remove from the heat and stir in first the tahini and then the banana.

Next stir in the musli, the chopped oats and the rolled oats. You want all the liquid used up coating stuff, but the mixture still pretty wet and squidgy.

Spread out about half an inch thick in a baking tray and bake at 175C (fan oven) for about 45 minutes. Keep an eye on it towards the end as when the surface finally dries out it will brown quite rapidly. When it starts to get signifcantly golden, take out and leave to cool a bit before cutting into bars and leaving on a rack to cool and dry.

I expect the higher moisture content makes this recipe a bit less temperature sensitive than proper flapjacks (which are basically toffee with oats). While it's cooking any raisins near the surface will swell up like blueberries and caramelise, and nuts near the surface can toast a bit - temperature might sensitively affect that.

The above is the recipe for the bars that were in the opaque bag. The ones in the transparent bag replaced the posh muesli with rolled oats, mixed nuts, pumpkin and sesame seeds and more chopped mixed nuts pressed into the surface. The ones i made for the M25 ride had some chopped cheap dates that i'd found a bit dry and un-interesting to eat whole. Chopped dry apricot would probably work well. If i try putting nuts on the surface again i'll probably coat them in the gloop first to make them stick better.

The Horlicks makes a small but i think noticeable difference. I think it's the barley malt component that really matters, so it should be possible to find that in pure non-dairy, vegan form (even vegans can have no sympathy for the poor cereal grains tricked into germinating so they start converting their starch into a slew of interesting sugars, then ruthlessly dried, toasted and ground up).