IKEA recipe hack - gluten free flapjacks

I love IKEA. Pure and simple, it's a happy relationship. We only see each other every few months but when we do it's like we've never been apart.

If I started to list everything we own in this house that originated from the big blue warehouse in Wednesbury I'd lose you before the end of the paragraph. Suffice to say, the bedroom furniture I had when I was ten years old is still going strong, baby puddleduck's nursery furniture has been handed down to the boy, the playroom is Expedit'd to the rafters and Hektar takes pride of place in the living room.

I'm not sure what I enjoy most, meandering round the dream-like room sets following the arrows as if magnets are drawing me round the store, or catching five minutes on Pinterest searching for Ikea hacks to inspire organisation of the chaos in this house! (OK - honest Wednesday - I never spend just five minutes on Pinterest, I think I managed to loose just 42 once when I was having a good day and no matter how many storage units, space saving devices or ikea hacks I follow to the letter this house will never be organised!!!)

Such is my passion for Ikea, I am a Family Card member and have subscribed to the email newsletters.

Imagine my delight then when the lovely people at Ikea sent out a recipe from Izy Hossack which landed in my inbox on the very day two bananas were embarking on their final step towards the compost bin, never to be seen again.

Does anyone else manage to get through an entire bunch of bananas before at least two turn inedibly black? No? Just me? OK.

This recipe went to the top of my baking hit list at the speed of light as I have yet to find the perfect flapjack recipe, given that most contain dried fruit which I cannot stand the sight of never mind digest. I'm also a guilty convert to the current trend that is coconut oil (homemade body scrub blog post coming soon) so off to the local supermarket we trotted to buy gluten free oats and maple syrup and get this recipe started.

I've called this blog post Ikea hack as I made a few substitutions to the recipe - the shop didn't have maple syrup so we had to make to with golden syrup combined with the remnants of maple syrup I managed to dig out from the back of the baking cupboard, and I also substituted the sugar for 14g of Sweet Freedom natural fruit sugar.

The recipe is naturally dairy and gluten free so again = winner!

The presence of bananas in the recipe was also timely given that our banana tree has fruited this year. I think that's quite rare. Cue arty photograph of banana and oat flapjacks in foreground with fruiting banana plant in the background.

ORIGINAL RECIPE BY IZY HOSSACK - topwithcinnamon.com/ for Ikea. 

90g coconut oil

2 mashed over-ripe bananas

120ml maple syrup 

2 tablespoons demorara sugar (I replaced this with 17g Sweet Freedom Original)

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

pinch of salt

240g porridge oats (gluten free)

50g dark chocolate, melted

Combine oil, syrup sugar, vanilla and salt in a saucepan and heat slowly until the coconut oil has melted. Stir in the oats and stir well to ensure they are all coated. 

Pour the mixture into a greased baking tin and flatten. Bake at 180 C / 160 C (fan) for 20 minutes. 

Drizzle with the melted chocolate. Cool and cut. Serve. Eat. Enjoy. 

Despite baking for years I've never used my silicone baking 'tin' but we'd already popped a quick batch of brownies in the oven and my other tin seemed too big for the amount of mixture. I bought this one from Denby in the sale eons ago when it was priced so low it would have been rude to leave it there on the shelf. Finally it got its first outing with this recipe. 

It was perfect for the flapjacks. No need to line or grease the tin first, the flapjacks cut really easy when still inside the tin and easing round the edges they released easily. Think I'll be trying more recipes in this!