Hello and welcome to my new home, I know that you can not see it, or really knew my other house, but we have finally moved to the very lovely Edenbridge in Kent, we have been here for over four weeks now and we absolutely love the town and the new house. We are all unpacked, settled and decorating is well underway, but I do have a confession, even though I had good intentions, I even prepared lots of sugar free goodies for moving day, the last few weeks I have well and truly fell off my clean eating, sugar free diet and boy am I paying for it. I am run down, tired and my hair and skin have gone to pot!

So I decided I needed inspiring and pushing back in the right direction, buying new cookery books always inspires me, so off to my Amazon wish list I went and ordered the very Lovely Ella Woodward’s, Deliciously Ella and The Guilt Free Gourmet by Jordan and Jessica Bourke. Post it Notes in hand I devoured the books for inspiration, found a wealth of goodies and have decided to start with these very yummy, but extremely simple flapjacks.

I have mentioned before that I get the dreaded afternoon energy slump and always after dinner crave something sweet, I am always looking for something healthy to replace chocolate, desserts and sweets and these flapjacks fit the bill nicely. They are full of fibre and plant protein but taste deliciously naughty. They are sweet, moist and perfect with a nice cup of tea.

Well I can highly recommend Ella’s book and will hopefully be bringing you a few more recipes from this and other healthy cookery books soon, but for now, it is time to try and squeeze in a little sewing for Diana’s House ! A woman’s work is never done, now where did I put those flapjacks 😉

Buon appetito

sugar free flapjacks

Makes about 20 Flapjacks, depending on how you like to slice them up!

260g Oats
200g Bananas (roughly 2)
6 tablespoons maple syrup
6 tablespoons cashew butter (any nut butter will work, I use peanut butter on this occasion)
4 tablespoons coconut oil (plus extra for greasing if not using parchment or baking paper)

Preheat the oven to 200C, Fan 180C.

Place the oats into a mixing bowl.

Mash the bananas with a fork and add them to a saucepan with the maple syrup, cashew butter or nut butter of choice and the coconut oil. Allow to simmer until it forms a liquid.

Pour the liquid over the oats and stir well, until they are all fully coated. I added a few chopped dates and chopped almonds, just because I had them laying around, but you can play with the recipe and add what ever you like, seeds, nuts, dried fruit, just add more liquid as necessary or even reduce the amount of oats by the weight of the other ingredients that you have decided to add.

Grease a baking tray with coconut oil or line with parchment/baking paper. Transfer the flapjack mix into your prepared tray and press down firmly with a large spoon or spatula, until very compact.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until the top starts to brown.

Once cooked, remove the tray from the oven, leave to cool fully and then slice.

Note : Would make a very nice dessert with ice cream and fresh fruit.

sugar free flapjacks