Summer Camp Flapjacks
Because I’ll be in a field with a beer when you read this
Pull Up A Chair is a weekly newsletter containing all the things I’d like to be chatting about if we could hang out together in real life. Every week, I start with three things I’ve enjoyed, and then write in more detail about something I’ve been thinking about.
🥚 Frittata. After failing to follow through on all last week’s dinner plans, I started this week with a cauliflower and a block of halloumi in the fridge. I used this Waitrose recipe as a starting point, but added in a wrinkly red pepper and a huge handful of peas, before baking the frittata in a roasting tin rather than doing it on the hob. Then I’ve been eating it for lunch all week. Smashing.
📚 We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian. I have read and adored Cat Sebastian’s 19th-century historical romances, and We Could Be So Good is her first 20th century romance. In 1950s New York, the son of a newspaper owner gets buddied up with a reporter who, honestly, just wants to get on with his job and stay out of the way of crooked police. Shenanigans ensue, of course - with the ever-present threat of the law hanging over the men’s heads and huge amounts of sheer tenderness (which is my kryptonite). I’d highly recommend this to all of you. (Bookshop.org | Amazon - affiliate links)
🍫 Lidl (Fin Carré) Salted Pretzel Milk Chocolate. I can’t remember who I saw raving about this chocolate on Instagram, but I picked a bar up last week and have been picking at it from the fridge ever since. Sure, it’s cheap chocolate, so I’m not comparing it with more expensive brands, but it’s so good, and it’s packed full of salty pretzel pieces.
When this week’s newsletter goes out, I’ll be in a pine forest, probably some combination of soggy, sunburnt, and insect-bitten, and surrounded by pals. For the first time this year, I’m car-sharing with a friend, so in celebration of the fact that I don’t have to make my way to summer camp by train and bus, I’ve gone all out with the baking in preparation.
As ever, I went to Deb Perelman at Smitten Kitchen to use her cannoli cake and everyday chocolate cake recipes, both of which are loaf cakes that travel well and taste good a few days after baking. As well as those, though, I made a batch of the flapjacks my mum always used to send me to Guide Camp with. (A quick language note - while in North America ‘flapjacks’ can mean little thick pancakes, in the UK they’re our - less healthy - equivalent of a granola bar).
To explain: when I was in the Girl Guides, our annual week camping was a huge treat. To keep the group of hungry teenage girls going, in addition to mealtimes, we had three opportunities each day for a warm drink and a piece of cake: elevenses, mid-afternoon, and last thing before bed. So as well as our bedding rolls and welly boots and sitter buckets, we were all required to bring a cake which would go into the camp larder and be brought out at one of these snack times. Invariably, by halfway through the week, some of the cakes were a little dry, so my mum always sent me away with a slab of flapjack. I’m pretty sure you could use one of these to build a nuclear shelter with, and you’d still come out unscathed - so they make perfect camping fuel.
And now I’m going to share her recipe with you (if only so that I can find it myself).
Preheat an oven to about 140 degrees Celsius (285 Fahrenheit).
Line a square brownie tin or a small roasting tin (8” by 8” or thereabouts) with baking parchment. Having just moved, I haven’t stocked up on that yet, so I reverse-engineered a tin lining with two loaf tin liners. You do you.
Pop 200g salted butter, 200g golden syrup, and 200g sugar into a saucepan and sit it over a low heat to melt together. I would usually use golden caster sugar, but whatever you have around will work. (Golden Syrup is a British thing, most famously sold by Lyle’s in round green tins with lions on; I think you can find it around the world these days?).
Don’t let the mixture come anywhere close to boiling! As soon as it’s turned into a glossy liquid (stirring it gently will help encourage the butter), stir in 450g rolled oats. It always looks as though there won’t be enough of the syrup to cover the oats, but there always is enough if you keep at it. Then tip the whole thing into your tin, and smooth the top.
Put in your oven for 20-25 minutes (I always go towards the later end of that because I like it to go golden brown around the edges), then let it cool in the tin.
Once it’s completely cool, lift onto a chopping board and cut into slices or chunks (On this occasion, I’ve cut it into 22 chunks), with a chef’s knife or bread knife. Because I was slightly too impatient, and because of my MacGyvered approach to lining the tin, I broke the slab on its way to the cutting board - hence the slightly ‘abstract’ approach to dividing it up!
Best enjoyed in a field while slightly grubby and a bit tired, in close proximity to friends.
Speak soon,
Lily
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