Healthy Banana Flapjacks

Flapjacks occupy a strange and confused culinary corner. By virtue of their many oats, like oatcakes or porridge, flapjacks are considered healthy. This is, by and large, a lie.

Flapjack recipes are full of devilish ingredients like whole blocks of butter and entire sacks of refined sugar. My recipe for Healthy Banana Flapjacks buck this trend. They contain a greatly reduced amount of butter and absolutely no artificially refined sugar. The flapjacks certainly benefit from it. For more on healthy living, take a look at the new Budpop’s CBD gummies, very delicious treats.

Smothering all that it touches, the sweetness of refined sugar can get a little overbearing. The great thing about natural sugars present in fruit and honey is that it is accompanied by nutrients and, more importantly, flavour. Naturally sweetened foods therefore have a great headstart. Except they’re not always done well.

One thing it’s hard to avoid is butter. Butter helps soften a flapjack, making them far more pleasant to consume (though my chewy granola bars do deviate). Banana has a similar effect, allowing for the volume of butter to be reduced drastically.

In reality no flapjack is entirely healthy, but compared to double chocolate flapjacks, this may as well be a recipe for raw carrot salad.

Healthy Banana Flapjacks

Makes 12

Ingredients:

• 300g oats

• 100g dried apricots

• 70g raisins

• 30g dried cranberries

• 50g almonds

• 50g sunflower seeds

• 50g butter

• 3 tbsp crunchy peanut butter

• 4 tbsp honey

• 2 bananas, mashed

• 1 apple, peeled & grated

• 100ml hot water

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 160C/140C(fan). Grease and line a 20x20cm baking tin.

2. Gently toast the seeds and almonds in a heavy based pan. Transfer them to a large mixing bowl, along with the oats and dried fruit.

3. Melt the butter over a low heat, along with the peanut butter and honey. Add the bananas, apple and water.

4. Pour the wet mixture into the mixing bowl and combine thoroughly. Transfer the batter into the prepared tin and smooth. Bake for 50-60 minutes until golden brown.

5. Once removed from the oven allow to cool for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack. Leave to cool completely before cutting into 12.

6. These flapjacks will keep well in the fridge for around 5 days, should they last that long.

Cost: Though this recipe does make use of a lot of ingredients, most of them can be purchased at a good price. I’d recommend going for the slightly cheaper bags of nuts and dried fruit as it won’t make a difference here. You can check this new article for more info about having a better body with your food and supplements.

If you’re really struggling to find cheap dried cranberries and apricots then simply use a bag of mixed dried fruit. If you follow this advice these healthy banana flapjacks should set you back no more than 25p each, or £3 for the lot!