Savvy Vegan Flapjack Recipe

Now I’ll make it clear, I’m not a vegan. However, sometimes in life bakers may need to be catering for vegans and this vegan flapjack recipe is a handy little one to pull out, especially as part of an afternoon tea style platter. It’s not complicated. In fact, it’s very simple. Here are the steps to go about having a beautifully golden vegan flapjack ready for vegan friends and company. It’s a wonderful way to make something on a budget, in bulk, when planning family meals.

Ingredients for a Vegan Flapjack Recipe

150g dairy-free spread (Stork, Flora Dairy-Free or similar)
150g soft light brown sugar
2.5 tbsp golden syrup
195g rolled oats
95g chopped nuts (the more finely chopped the better the flapjacks will hold together)
95g dried fruit or seeds (raisins, pumpkin seeds, chopped apricots etc)

Savvy Side Read: How to make simple YouPo Noodles.

Dairy-free Flapjack method

1. Heat the oven to around 170 degrees C.
2. Once you’ve done this, you’ll need to line a square or rectangular baking tray with baking parchment or grease it thoroughly. In this case, coconut oil would work as a no butter alternative due to the vegan nature of the bake.
3. Next in your vegan flapjack recipe, you’ll need to take around 150 grams of your chosen dairy-free spread. It doesn’t really matter which dairy-free spread you use, but it’s better not to use a coconut-based one as this can sometimes alter the taste more of the vegan flapjack. Of course, being vegan, it has to be a no butter recipe.
4. Then add the sugar and syrup from the list of ingredients to a medium saucepan over a medium to high heat.
5. As the mix dissolves, remove it from the heat and tip this over the oats.
6. Add in the chopped nuts and dried fruit and transfer to the baking tin.
7. Make sure you push it down as much as you can with the back of the mixing spoon or a chef’s knife.
8. Finally, bake for around 30 minutes.
9. You want them to be lightly golden and bendable but still crispy on the edges.
10. Turn them out onto a chopping board once they are cooled.
11. Slice them into squares or rectangles to keep. I highly recommend you keep them in a suitable container such as a stasher, doing this will keep the vegan flapjack recipe fresh.

These will keep for around four or five days.

Looking for more dairy-free recipes? Check out how to make dairy-free Yorkshires or consider other cow’s milk alternatives such as pea milk in recipes.

Is Flapjack vegan?

Well, if you’re going to purchase shop-bought flapjacks from your local supermarket, the chances are they’re not vegan friendly. Ingredients vary incredibly, but they will likely have butter in and other kinds of milk protein if they’re the individually wrapped “cereal or oat bar” variety.

It doesn’t mean that there won’t be some plant-based alternatives within the shops, but in general, the only way to rely on them being vegan is to make your own at home.

The main reason you won’t find flapjacks being listed as vegan is the use of butter. Now, this can be changed in some way to use a different spread, but the chances are this will be palm oil or something similar. These palm oil-based sources may have a bad impact on nature and therefore potentially not considered traditionally a suitable alternative.

However, if making them at home, I would suggest using a good dairy-free plant-based spread such as Stork, Pure, Flora Dairy-Free or even M&S now make an M&S Plant Kitchen Sunflower Spread.

Whilst the sugar in the recipe can be considered non-vegan if you’re being very strict about the manufacturing process and the potential use of “bone char”, so most that are vegan I would expect they would consider sugar fair game.

Why is my flapjack falling apart?

The nature of flapjack being mainly raw food means a crumbly nature. Simply put, it falls apart. Part of the fun of a flapjack is crumbs and bits going everywhere as it falls apart, however, there are things bakers can do to give their flapjacks a little more strength. This is the addition of a small amount of cornflour or plain flour to the mix. In addition, the more finely milled your ingredients are, the better!  Use fine, rather than coarse nuts, and even potentially try ground almond as a bit more of an emulsion to bind the vegan flapjack recipe.

Can I make flapjacks with honey?

You may be tempted to add honey, but remember if you’re intending this to be truly vegan for a friend, you’d need to avoid its usage. This is a dead simple recipe and great to enjoy with a freshly brewed coffee or with one of our other fab recipes like fried halloumi and pinenut salad.