My mother-in-law Joan used to make these flapjacks. It’s amazing how quickly a tray of them can disappear. Fresh apricots are in the shops now, and British growers have had a record-breaking crop this year. You can also grow your own fruit. There’s several new varieties for growing in small spaces, such as Compacta. Moorpark is traditionally grown, but there’s a newer apricot, USA-bred Goldcot recommended for flavour and hardiness. Tomcot produces large apricots, and there’s also New Large Early and Isabelle. Golden Glow is a delicious apricot variety, discovered in the Malvern Hills in Worcestershire.
FLAPJACK
Ingredients
400g fresh apricots. Other fruits can be used such as peaches/ plums/ raspberries/ strawberries. Roughly chopped. I didn’t have quite enough fresh apricots, so added 5 dried apricots to my mixture.
2 tablespoon lemon juice
130g light brown soft sugar
230g butter or margarine (use soya for vegan recipe)
100g golden syrup
100g blanched almonds
350g rolled porridge oats
Three quarter teaspoon of cinnamon
Half teaspoon of salt
20cm baking tray, lined with parchment
Recipe
Preheat the oven to 200C gas mark 6.
Place the apricots, lemon juice and 30g of the sugar in a saucepan and simmer gently until cooked. Stir occasionally. It will form a thick purée. Almost like jam.
Place the remaining sugar, butter or margarine and golden syrup in a saucepan and melt together on gentle heat.
Mix all the dry ingredients together and pour in the melted liquid ingredients. Mix together until all the oats are coated.
Place half of the mixture in the baking tray and level. Cover with a layer of the fruit purée. Top the fruit with spoonfuls of the oat mixture. Carefully level the topping, using a pallet knife or silicone spatula.
Bake for 25 minutes, or until the topping is brown. Check after 15 minutes and cover with parchment if it is turning too brown.
Cool completely and cut into fingers.
Can be kept for 3 days in a tin.
Enjoy! 🙂
I topped my flapjack with nasturtium flowers, which are edible. Take care when using flowers to decorate food to check that they are edible and haven’t been sprayed with any chemicals.
Links: Apricot trees : https://www.chrisbowers.co.uk/category/apricots/
Nasturtium Tip Top Apricot : https://www.chilternseeds.co.uk/item_1261g_tropaeolum_majus_tip_top_apricot_seeds
Bramble Garden 
Karen I am very sad for that I have been absent, without taking the computer at all and I do not know if I will take it again. But when I saw your blog, I was happy and wanted to read it and I loved it. The recipe of the Flapjack made by your dear mother-in-law Joan, who I hope from the heart is in very good health as well as her husband, is easy to do since you explain it very well step by step and it must be delicious. Covering it with Capuchin flowers from your garden and eating them is an idea that could only occur to you. Karen you are fantastic. The cappuccino photo has made me smile: thank you. On Wednesday afternoon at the last minute my brother comes from Mallorca, where he lives. We leave on Thursday 12 in the morning to the cottage and return on Friday the 13th at 9:00 p.m. A trip lightning. It is to make sure that everything is well closed for winter. I am very sad to go, because my beloved Father came out alive and talking and arrived at the Emergency Hospital half-dead on a trip of less than 3 hours. Sorry for telling you this but you are my best friend Karen. Much love and good health for your whole family and for you. Take care Loving caresses for Grace and Meg. Very affectionate greetings from Margarita xxx
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Dear Margarita, I’m an so pleased to hear from you. And so pleased the blog makes you happy. You are in the early days of a sad journey that I have also been on with my father and grandfather. All I can say is that they would not want you to be sad. Eventually, you will be able to remember them with smiles and happiness again. But it will take time. Meanwhile, be kind to yourself. Do things that make you happy. Don’t dwell on things that make you feel sad. Don’t rush about too much. Take time for yourself. It’s been a traumatic year and you have hardly slowed down. Remember, you too have been ill. Thinking of you daily, and sending positive thoughts your way. Love and greetings to you and your family. Meg puppy and Grace cat are the best of friends and bring so much happiness into the house after our difficult time with the care home and selling my in -law’s family home. Much love karen xxx
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Karen thank you very much for your words of comfort and encouragement and for your advice. You are a true friend. You’re right. I have to stop a little and spend time for myself: I am very nervous and although I do nothing but sleep, cry and be tyste I am very accelerated inside. I need to calm down. On Saturday I was seeing photos of my Father with my Mother and with me and my cats and my dog already deceased all who were the joy and love of the house and my “hair brothers” because I loved them and I love them with all my heart, They were one of the family, and it helped me a lot to calm my nerves and my sadness, because the photos were made in the country house and were very beautiful and each one had a happy memory. Thanks Karen. Karen, you also have problems and I don’t help you. The sale of your father-in-law’s family home must have been terrible and take away a lot of bad memories. Stay with the good times you spent in that house, when your in-laws were in good health, think only of that. And as long as your in-laws have lived in the care home, because of their state of health they cannot live anywhere else: here they are taken care of by nurses and doctors and are together. Surely you will see them very often and bring them flowers. Take it as your new home, in which they have a room for themselves and have their privacy. And the rest with people his age with whom I’m sure your father-in-law will have made some friendship and if he doesn’t have his wife Joan with him. They are older and need care that you cannot give them as much as you love them, you have to understand it: you have not abandoned them, on the contrary, you have improved their quality of life and they are together. And you can go see them whenever you want, like when they lived at home. Karen don’t feel guilty about anything, you made the best decision for them. Love and health .Take care. Very affectionate greetings from Margarita xxx
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Dear Margarita, you always help me with your kind comments and care. I’m always grateful for your thoughts. Sending love and affectionate greetings in return xxx
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My dear friend Karen, I am grateful for all that you have helped me. My words are only to make you feel better and that everything is as bearable as possible for you. Thank you so much for everything. Much love and best regards from me xxx
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They look and sound delicious. xx
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Thank you Mike. Have a good week xx
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