I hoped to share this recipe with you all this morning but school is back and that meant I had 50 million things to do. I do love baking things to go in keira’s lunchbox but lately my one cup cookies have been coming home uneaten. So I went through a couple of cookbooks and found an old faithful book called Great Healthy Food for Vegetarian Kids which I picked up for $5 a few years ago. The recipe is for apple flapjacks but you see I’ve never had flapjacks before so I wasn’t sure whether the consistency was right – these are cakey, moist and super yummy. I also think they’re pretty good for you. And you could make them lower in fat and vegan just by swapping the butter for something like Nuttelex Lite which is a vegan/dairy free margerine. I say this because I did have the low fat vegan margerine in the fridge but went the whole hog with the butter.
120g butter
3 Tbsps maple syrup
150g brown sugar
280g rolled oats
30g pumpkin kernels/sunflower seeds
1 small apple grated (leave the skin on to make them more nutritious)
pinch of salt
In your TM bowl place butter (cubed), maple syrup and brown sugar. Heat for 2 minutes at 90 degrees and speed 2. Pour in remaining ingredients and on closed lid setting combine for 15 seconds on interval speed. Alternatively, if you don’t have a thermomix then melt butter, syrup and sugar in a saucepan and stir until combined and melted. Remove from heat and add in remaining ingredients and mix well. Tip into lined square/lamington tin and bake for about 25-30 minutes in a 180 degree oven until it feels set on top. Mine took close to 40 minutes but my oven is slooooow. Leave to cool for 5 or so minutes in the tin then lift out by paper and leave to cool on rack. Cut them into bars/squares. Enjoy.
The original recipe called for golden syrup but I just use maple syrup in everything now because golden syrup can be such a PITA when it gets stuck in the bottle so I gave up on it and much prefer maple syrup. And guess what happened – I made these and keira loved them at home but doesn’t want them in her lunchbox because of the green things. So back to my books………..
Does she not want the ‘green things’ in her school lunch box because she doesn’t like them or because she will get teased? Friend’s children have been teased & pointed at for years for taking what I would call interesting & yummy lunches to school; olives, hommus, gourmet leftovers, greek yoghurt, seeds, etc. A lot of the children where they go to school eat a rather unhealthy lunch full of packaged food so my friend’s kids have copped lots of taunts for having a “posh lunch”. I’ve been at their house when lunches are being prepared in the morning & I’d love to have one packed for me!
mmmm they sound lovely and scrummy – note to self to have a go at this recipe soon x Like the healthy bits in this recipe such as the pumpkin seeds and apple.
Will experiment on the family and see how they go down.
Leah x
Yummy-yummy!!
holy moly, that looks good! it looks like a good snack for me to take to work!
Looks like a fantastic idea for the lunch boxes, I always struggle to keep the kids interested so this will be great. Thanks!
my kids refuse to have anything green in their food for school – they way I trick them is put a through the food processor for a few seconds – its all crushed up so no-one seems to notice it then. I even put frozen vegies in the food processor and then mix it into normal pancake batter mix and use that for morning pancakes (of course maple syrup on!!!) – the poor kids don’t know what hits them most mornings!!!
Oooo yummo Corrie, you’re so good sourcing all these new tastes for your littlies. It’s a minefield out there when it comes to finding the right things for the kiddies to eat… AND finding something they actually like! How funny, I always thought flapjacks were like pikelets, thanks for showing me this is definitely not the case. Learn something new every day :o) xo
I always thought flapjacks were a kind of pancake too because I remember reading a book in 1st grade about them – yes I remember odd things lol! It turns out American flapjacks are pancakes & English flapjacks are the ones in this post
I’m always on the lookout for recipes for lunch box treats – I think the kids & I might make up a batch of these on the weekend ready for when school goes back next week. Another great book for these kind of recipes is Feeding Fussy Kids by Julie Maree Wood & Antonia Kidman. Even if your children aren’t fussy eaters (mine ARE) it has lots of yummy recipes that boost nutrition. I just made pumpkin muffins from the book the other day & the kids loved them.
Jasmine
I’m a thermomix demonstrator in London. I’m trying many new recipes and just tried this one. Delicious, and I added some wizzed up brazil, sunflower, pumpkin seeds and also some toasted sesame seeds.