Banana flapjacks with white chocolate

The perpetual problem of being a generally disorganised person and living on my own is that I often have bananas excess to requirements. Don't get me wrong, I like bananas, I eat them every day but I don't like them squashily ripe. Ugh. A combination of having bought a couple too many bananas and then feeling under the weather and going off eating bananas (anything really!) meant that ideas were needed to prevent the decomposition any further. Luckily, squishy bananas are great for baking.

This recipe is a slightly adapted Sue Lawrence recipe, taken from her Book of Baking, in the healthy alternatives chapter. I think this is probably because oats are considered to be healthy, but lets be honest, in normal flapjack they're glued together with copious amounts of (admittedly delicious, but undeniably calorific) butter, sugar and syrup. The beauty of this recipe is that the bananas add some sweetness, and bind the mixture too, meaning that much less butter and sugar are needed here. So these genuinely are quite healthy! Except that it's nearly Christmas and at Christmas it becomes obligatory to eat more than we should, and chocolate is always a good way to go, so a dousing of white chocolate was in order. Less healthy, but more delicious! I toyed with the idea of adding dried cranberries too, but decided against it in the end. I suppose it would have been more festive, but never mind.

Banana flapjacks with white chocolate
Ingredients
125g/4 1/2oz butter
85g/ 3oz slight muscovado sugar
2 tbsp golden syrup
350g/12oz porridge oats
2 very ripe bananas, mashed (medium ish size!)

Method

- Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4 and lightly butter a 23x33cm/9x13in swiss roll tin.

- Melt the butter, sugar and syrup in a pan over a low heat (or in a microwave if you possess one I don't!). Tip in the oats (or if you've used a small pan, tip the butter mixture into a bowl containing the oats) and start to stir. Add the mashed banana and keep mixing until no dry bits or clumps of banana remain.

- Tip into prepared tin and level as best you can (with the back of a spoon is good).

- Bake for 20-25 minutes (but mine took 30) until lightly golden brown around the edges and it feels fairly firm all over.

- Remove from oven and cut into bars while hot. Allow to cool completely before taking out of tin.

- Melt white chocolate in small bowl over a pan of hot water (or in the microwave if you prefer) and carefully dip the flapjacks into the chocolate. Place on a piece of parchment/silicon paper until set (a few hours or overnight).

- Enjoy

NB This is a very soft flapjack, unlike traditional versions. It will not break your teeth but it isn't as robust as normal flapjack, and is more likely to crumble. Be careful handling it!

I took these into church, nominally for the children, but the adults ended up eating them anyway. They were well received and people liked the fact that you didn't get shards of lethal oat coated with sugar etc trying to pierce your mouth!!!