Hi Bold Bakers.
In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I have Donal Skehan.
Hi!
So we’re really excited to have him here.
Yes.
For this episode, we’re going to bring you a lot of Irish.
We’re going to make, Donal:
We’re doing some Irish, classic childhood treats.
So we’re going to make some flapjacks.
Lovely.
Now these are ones that I loved growing up, so I think that you’re going to like them.
So over on Donal’s channel I made homemade digestive biscuits, which are also kind of
an Irish classic, right?
Absolutely.
Delicious too!
Lovely.
So head over to Donal’s channel, subscribe because I know that you’re going to love
his videos, and watch my homemade digestive video.
They are delicious and well worth watching.
So I’m excited about these flapjacks.
You should be.
We’re actually, we’re kind of giving them a bit of a twist because I’m adding chocolate
over the top of them.
They’re going to be delicious.
But the classic, young know, the classic part of these flapjacks-
Plain.
-is all about the oats and plain.
Yeah yeah yeah, but I like the addition of chocolate.
The great thing about these flapjacks is that it only takes a few ingredients and they tend
to be ingredients that you’re going to have in your store cupboard.
Now, when we make them at home, we make them with golden syrup.
But most American’s don’t have golden syrup?
No.
It’s not a thing.
What would you call?
Is it corn syrup?
It’s corn syrup.
Okay, but I’ve actually made a little bit of an adjustment and I’ve made it with maple
syrup.
So that you kind of get that toffee taste to it.
Yeah yeah yeah.
It’s quite nice.
I like that too.
And its natural sugar.
And a natural sugar.
Can’t go wrong.
So Donal, what have we got here?
Okay so, we’ve got some butter, we’ve got some sugar, we’ve got some rolled oats.
I’m actually adding in a little bit of desiccated coconut into these just for that extra little
bit of flavor.
You don’t have to add them if you don’t have them.
But they do give you that kind of exotic flavor that works really well with the oats.
So again, just some chocolate over the top and maple syrup.
So only a few ingredients.
I think, what, we’ve got like six ingredients?
Yeah.
Very easy.
So the first thing you need to do is get your butter and your sugar into the bowl and we’re
going to melt this down essentially.
I like this Donal.
I like having a buddy to bake with.
I know, it’s quite nice.
I like that we’re doing it kind of like, is it tandem?
Are we tandem baking right now?
Why not?
Tandem baking.
So we’ve got three tablespoons of maple syrup going in here and the great thing about
this is that whole bowl can go straight in the microwave to melt.
It looks gorgeous.
Lovely.
So this going into the microwave now.
Yeah.
And we get melting.
Okay.
Okay, this has come out of the microwave now and you can see that it’s turned into this
really beautiful sort of toffee mixture.
It smells lovely.
Doesn’t it?
I’ll tell you, if it wasn’t, like, molten temperature right now you’d want to stick
your face in it, but it really does look great.
And this is essentially the glue that’s going to bring together our dry ingredients.
Lovely.
So we’ve got some rolled oats.
Okay.
Going to chuck them in?
Absolutely.
There you go.
And then we’re going to go in there with the desiccated coconut as well.
Now the great thing about this glue is that you can add a whole load of different dry
ingredients.
I mean, flapjack purists probably wouldn’t want, like, raisins and things like that in
there.
Yeah.
But you could add nuts, you could add raisins.
Yeah, it’s moldable.
So just so you know, the recipe for this can be found on my website biggerbolderbaking.com.
Perfect.
It looks fantastic.
And you can add a pinch of salt in here if you want to.
Yeah yeah yeah.
You know, just to balance out the sweetness.
But I actually like it like this.
Yeah.
Big fan.
So now that this is completely mixed through, we’re going to transfer it out to a baking
tin which we’ve lined with some parchment paper.
Okay.
This is eight inches by eight inches and twenty centimeters by twenty centimeters.
I can never get the American measurements right.
That’s okay, I’ve got you covered.
Okay, so I’m just going to tumble it straight on in there.
And this is the only thing I would say you need to be careful with here, is making sure
it is nice and compact in the tin.
Yeah.
And you know what I love?
How thick they are.
Yeah.
They, they, you have to have a thick flapjack.
Yeah yeah.
You know, you don’t want it to be too thick, but you don’t want too thin, you know.
You don’t want a little weenie flapjack.
Who wants a weenie flapjack?
You might think I’m going over the top here but you really do want to press it right down.
Yeah.
And actually, Donal, while you’re pushing there, I’m going to do you a little plug.
You’re, you’re going to push for me?
I’m going to plug Donal’s book.
Yes, yes, this is Fresh.
This is Donal’s new book.
So Donal, when’s your book coming out?
So the book is out right now and this is the American version.
There is already a UK version, but this is in all good American bookshelves.
For those of you who haven’t seen Donal’s books before, they are works of art.
Quite a lot of healthy baking in there.
I thought it might be of interest to you.
Lovely.
It’s gorgeous.
Thank you.
It’s a beautiful book.
Okay, this is looking pretty good.
It’s as compact as it’s going to be.
Lovely.
So now it goes into the oven.
It’s going to bake for twenty minutes.
You want it to be slightly golden brown on the edges but you don’t want it to be over
cooked because otherwise it will be crispy
Hard.
-rather than chewy.
Yeah.
It’s going to go into the oven at 180 degrees Celsius that’s 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Right, these have come out of the oven now.
They’ve cooled slightly but I just wanted to use the bear hands.
I feel like this is an honor to wear the bear hands.
Look at that golden color.
It’s gorgeous.
And they smell, Donal, amazing.
So we’re actually going to finish these off with a drizzle of chocolate.
You don’t have to do this.
And you can slather it across the top, but we’re just going to go for a little bit
of a-
Just do a little bit of a drizzle.
-artistic drizzle, I would say.
So basically take up your melted chocolate and then just do a drizzle like that.
It can be as creative as you want.
Donal, this smells so good.
It really does.
And with that chocolate.
So, I mean, I’ve made a bit of a mess, but I think it’s going to be gorgeous when we
slice it up.
Well they’re homemade, you know, so this is what they look like.
This is true.
So we’ll transfer because we do have ones we’ve already made up.
They’ve cooled and really, what it comes down to is just slicing these up.
And the only tricky this is sliding these out of the tin.
I’ve got you covered.
There you go.
So it’s a little bit of a—oh, nicely done.
There you go.
Wonderful.
Oh, wow.
I do think, like I mean, that is what?
I don’t know.
Like about, like nearly an inch of thickness of flapjack.
Less than an inch?
Sure.
I think that’s an inch.
But I think you do need that thickness to the flapjack.
Yeah.
Okay, we have them sliced up and ready to go.
Are we going to try some?
Sure.
My favorite part of the job.
Ready?
Oh yes.
That is just sticky, it’s kind of nutty and it’s sweet.
You’re going for seconds.
That’s always a good sign.
They’re yummy.
They’re gorgeous, aren’t they?
They’re so yummy.
So now make sure you head over to Donal’s channel and watch our video on how to make
homemade digestive biscuits.
They’re really good, weren’t they?
They are good.
They’re very good.
Yeah.
We’re killing it today.
We’re on fire right now.
I will see you back here every week for more Bigger, Bolder Baking.
(What’s an aardvark impression?
With your sleeves down and you walk around like this.)