I love to bake and I love eating healthy homemade food that’s free from additives. This can require some thinking ahead and preparation but once you have a few little trusted recipes that work for you you’ll soon get into a rhythm.

My flapjack recipe below is one of my favourite snacks, healthy and filling and perfect when you’re on the go. It also works well crumbled over fruit and yoghurt, a quick and simple breakfast idea.

The other great thing about it is you don’t have to have the exact ingredients in. So you don’t have walnuts in the cupboard but you have pecans – perfect! Play around with the recipe and see how it works out. The most important thing is that your bananas are ripe, I mean really ripe, like they’re getting those brown dots on their skins.

Ingredients;

(makes 12 portions)

300g oats

150g butter

Handful dried cranberries

Handful dried apricots roughly chopped

Handful dates roughly chopped

Handful walnuts roughly chopped

Handful pumpkin seeds

2 large ripe bananas mashed (need to be nice and ripe as this binds the oats)

A shake of cinnamon

Method;

Pre-heat the oven to 180 °C

Line an oven proof dish with grease proof paper – let it hang over the edges slightly so you can use it like handle to pull your flapjacks out once ready!

Melt the butter in a medium sized saucepan over a low heat.

Throw in all the fruit, nuts, mashed banana and, cinnamon and cook through for 3-5 minutes stirring regularly. You just want the butter to glaze all the fruit and for soften it slightly, be careful the heat isn’t too high as you don’t want the butter to burn.

Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the oats. Make sure all the oats are covered – you should have a sticky golden mass.

Tip the mixture into your oven proof baking dish and press it down with the back of  a metal spoon. Pop in the oven and cook for 25 minutes!!

 Put the kettle on, put your feet up and enjoy : )

Jane x