I wanted a reasonably healthy snack for my 3pm cravings at work and when I looked at the price of shop bought ones I realised that it would cheaper and super easy to make my own, and it's the right time of year to make my favourite twist on mince pies. All the stars aligned, this was basically fated to happen!
Ingredients
411g jar mincemeat (yes that is an oddly specific number, I'm sure there's some sort of historic reason for it, it's just the size Tesco sells it in) £1
200g Glacé cherries (I used morello ones but the normal ones work just as well) £1
150g Butter £0.75
6 tablespoons golden syrup £2 for a whole pot
400g rolled oats (the chunky ones if you can find them, just normal rolled porridge oats if you can't) £2 for a whole bag
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 175C. Roughly chop the cherries and them with the mincemeat, butter and syrup to a fairly large pan and heat over a medium heat on the hob.
2. When the butter has melted, add the oats a little at a time and stir with a wooden spoon. It gets quite stiff but trust me, all the oats will get covered in the delicious goop if you keep stirring.
3. I did mine in this adorable loaf tin but a medium sized rectangular tray works just as well. If your tray is bigger you'll get thin and crispy flapjacks, if your tin is smaller you'll get fatter, gooier flapjacks, there's no right or wrong way. Whichever you choose, grease your tin, transfer your flapjack batter and press it down with the back of a spoon until it's fairly level.
4. Pop it in the oven for 12-15 minutes - you want the top to just be going brown and a little bit crispy.
5. Attempt to let them cool before you fangoriously devour them. They'll keep really well in the fridge for about 5 days if they live that long!
I made this again in a huge roasting tin so they were thinner and crisper and I think I prefer them that way. More experiments may happen with this. I have a weird feeling that it'd make a great base for a cheesecake with caramelised oranges.
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