Autumn’s bounty comes together with sweet sticky oats to make these seasonal blackberry flapjacks. They’re super simple to make and quick too. If you’re a fast worker you can make them in half an hour from start to finish. A touch of cinnamon enhances the blackberry flavour and rounds things off nicely.
Blackberries are incredibly juicy which makes working with them in eggless bakes tricky. It’s taken a few attempts to get these blackberry flapjacks just right. Earlier iterations were too soft and / or too sweet. But the recipe I have for you here is just about perfect.
Dive Right In
- Why Make Blackberry Flapjacks?
- Blackberry Flapjacks
- Ingredients
- How To Make Blackberry Flapjacks
- How To Make Blackberry And Apple Flapjacks
- Blackberry Flapjacks FAQs
- Other Blackberry Recipes You Might Like
- Keep In Touch
- The Recipe
Why Make Blackberry Flapjacks?
Everyone loves a flapjack. They’re right on so many levels. Ultra processed commercial ones are not the healthiest though. Homemade blackberry flapjacks, however, are a different story.
- Autumnal Bliss – When blackberries are in season, using them in flapjacks is a delicious way to make the most of their abundance and flavoursome freshness. You’ll get at least one blackberry in every bite.
- Child-Friendly – Flapjacks are so easy to make it’s a great bake to get kids cooking in the kitchen. Blackberry flapjacks are sweet and tasty, so they’re also a good way to get some nutritious berries into their diet.
- Colourful Bake – Although blackberries look black in their whole state, when you cook them they go a beautiful dark purple. This colour, studded throughout, turns a normal brown flapjack into a visually appealing snack.
- Nutritional Boost – Blackberries are packed with vitamins, minerals, fibre and antioxidants. Incorporating them into flapjacks adds nutritional value to a rather calorie laden sweet treat.
- Portability – Whilst blackberry flapjacks are a softer type of flapjack, they still hold together well. This makes them a convenient on-the-go snack. Make a batch and take them with you for a scrumptious energy boost during the day. They’re great for lunchboxes too.
- Quick and Easy – Bakes don’t come much easier than flapjacks. When you haven’t got much time or just want a sweet snack that requires little effort, flapjacks are ideal. For quickness and simplicity they’re hard to beat.
Blackberry Flapjacks
Bakes don’t get much easier than flapjacks. It’s just a case of melting butter, sugar and syrup together, then adding oats and any other ingredients you might like. It takes all of five minutes to melt and mix. Then you press it into a baking tray and pop it in the oven.
By the way if you’re wondering why these flapjacks look like oat bars rather than pancakes, it’s because these are British flapjacks not American ones.
The simplicity of flapjacks makes them a great first bake for kids who are ready to branch out on their own.
It’s quite likely that you’ll have all of the ingredients you need for this recipe in the kitchen. They’re all store cupboard staples. Except for the blackberries of course. You don’t need that many blackberries to make them though, so they won’t take long to pick. And who doesn’t love a bit of foraging?
Although it’s fair to say there’s quite a lot of butter and sugar in flapjacks, they’re also loaded with oats. So as far as sweet treats go, they’re not too bad. Adding blackberries raises their nutritional profile a little too.
They make great picnic fair or a snack to keep you going when you’re out and about. These blackberry flapjacks are good for lunchboxes too.
Because of the fruit, these flapjacks are quite soft, so if you’re after crunchy or chewy ones, these probably aren’t the flapjacks for you.
For a quick and easy pudding, just spoon the cooked flapjack mixture into bowls as soon as it’s out of the oven. Serve with custard, cream or ice cream – so delicious.
Ingredients
Traditional British flapjacks are a mix of just four ingredients: oats, butter, sugar and syrup. Their simplicity is one of the reasons why they’re so popular. These blackberry flapjacks have two additional ingredients.
Blackberries
Pick ripe, but not overly juicy blackberries for this recipe. As you don’t need many of them, pick them carefully to ensure they’re clean and free of debris. This means you don’t need to wash them. It’s very difficult to dry blackberries and you want them as dry as possible for these flapjacks.
Leave them in an open tray or shallow bowl for ten minutes or more just in case a spider or other insect has accidentally got picked as well. They’ll then have time to climb their way to freedom.
I haven’t tried baking these flapjacks with frozen blackberries, but I don’t see why they wouldn’t work.
Oats
For this recipe you want rolled oats. But make sure they’re porridge oats, not jumbo oats. I’ve noticed that some porridge oats are more like jumbo oats with some brands. If I get some that look a bit too coarse, I give them a very quick pulse in the blender.
Larger coarser oats, won’t soak up the butter and sugar to the same extent and will make for a much crumblier bake.
Syrup
Golden syrup is the traditional one to use in flapjacks. It gives the characteristic light caramel flavour and helps hold everything together. However, if you’re after something a bit healthier you could use honey or maple syrup instead.
Butter
Butter is also key to a flapjack’s flavour. It gives richness and helps hold everything together. I tend to use salted butter for flapjacks, but it’s fine to use unsalted with a pinch of sea salt instead.
If you want to make these blackberry flapjacks vegan, you can substitute the butter for coconut oil. It won’t have the same flavour, but they’ll still be really tasty. Take a look at my recipe for vegan coconut flapjacks.
Sugar
Ignore what it shows you in the ingredients image above, I usually demerara sugar in my flapjacks. It not only has a lovely flavour, but also improves the structure of the finished bake. The best substitute is golden granulated sugar.
Soft brown sugar gives a slightly muddy colour to the flapjacks. But most importantly it makes them too soft and they’re then liable to fall apart. I learned this the hard way.
Cinnamon
A little cinnamon really helps to bring the blackberry flavours out and adds a touch of warmth. You don’t want so much that it’s easy to identify the taste of cinnamon, but just enough to give subtle tones to keep everyone guessing.
If you don’t like cinnamon, swap it for a pinch of cloves or just leave it out.
How To Make Blackberry Flapjacks
This super simple bake requires little in the way of equipment and thus little in the way of washing up. Win win. You don’t need much more than a saucepan, wooden spoon and baking tin.
Step 1. Melt Butter And Sugar
Measure the butter, sugar and syrup and place in a medium to large saucepan set over a gentle heat. Wait until the butter has melted, then give everything a good stir. Remove from the heat.
Top Tip
It helps if you cut the butter into pieces first. This way it will melt a lot faster.
Step 2. Add Oats
Pour in the oats and stir until the grains are all well coated and there is no liquid left in the pan.
Step 3. Add Blackberries
Tip in the blackberries and stir them in as gently as you can. It doesn’t matter if you break a few, but it’s nice to keep as many as you can whole. The more that break, the darker in colour your flapjacks will become.
Step 4. Transfer To Baking Tin
Line your baking tin with baking, parchment or greaseproof paper. There are two good reasons for this. The main one is that it prevents the flapjacks sticking to the bottom of the pan. But the other means that once the bake has cooled, you can slide the paper onto a board and thus slice your flapjacks easily.
Using the back of a spoon or a spatular, press the mixture evenly into the tin so that it’s well packed. Again try not to break up too many of the blackberries, although it’s impossible to keep them all whole.
Step 5. Bake
Place the tin in the middle of the preheated oven and bake until it’s golden all over. The edges will be darker brown and crispy and that’s fine. It’s some people’s favourite part.
Getting the baking time just right is important. If the flapjacks aren’t done enough they’ll be too soft and will fall apart. If you over bake them, they’ll dry out, become crumbly and will fall apart.
Transfer the tin to a wire rack to cool.
The bake will be soft when it first comes out of the oven. It will firm up as it cools though. This is where patience is required. It’s important to let the flapjacks cool properly before cutting or they will fall apart.
That is unless you want to eat the mixture as a warm pudding with cream, custard or ice-cream. Then it doesn’t matter if it falls into bits.
Once cool, slide the bake onto a board and slice into twelve rectangular pieces.
How To Make Blackberry And Apple Flapjacks
If you want to make blackberry and apple flapjacks, you can go two ways. Either way, follow the recipe in the card at the bottom of this post, but make the appropriate adjustment when it comes to the fruit.
You can either add in fifty grams of grated apple or go with one hundred grams of blackberries and one hundred grams of grated apple.
Apples aren’t quite as juicy as blackberries, so you can have a higher ratio of oats to fruit.
Blackberry Flapjacks FAQs
Flapjacks normally keep for a good few days, but because these blackberry flapjacks contain fresh fruit, it’s best to eat them within two to three days. You can freeze them for up to four weeks, but because of the moisture in the fruit, they’re likely to be a lot softer when thawed.
Flapjacks are inherently somewhat crumbly. However there’s a difference between a few crumbs and the whole thing falling apart. Try to bake the flapjacks so that they’re golden all over, but not too brown. If flapjacks are over baked they dry out and are thus likely to crumble. Likewise if you underbake, they’ll be too soft and will fall apart.
With these blackberry flapjacks, it’s important you use the correct quantities, too much syrup, not enough butter or too many blackberries will all have an effect on the final structure.
It’s fine to use frozen blackberries in these flapjacks. Just use the amount given in the recipe and stir into the mix when frozen. This will help to prevent them breaking up.
Other Blackberry Recipes You Might Like
- Blackberry barfi with coconut & rose
- Blackberry overnight oats
- Chocolate blackberry cake
- Double blackberry galette
- Hazelnut and blackberry meringue
- No-churn blackberry ice cream
Keep in Touch
Thank you for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make these blackberry flapjacks, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. Do you have any recommendations or advice for baking flapjacks?
Please rate the recipe. If you post pictures of your creations on social media, use the hashtag #tinandthyme so I can see them.
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If you’d like more flapjack recipes, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them. All delicious and nutritious, of course.
Choclette x
Blackberry Flapjacks. PIN IT.
Easy Blackberry Flapjacks
Ingredients
- 140 g salted butter
- 125 g demerara sugar or golden granulated sugar
- 2 tbsp golden syrup
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- 275 g rolled oats (porridge oats) not jumbo oats
- 150 g blackberries
Instructions
- Set the oven to 180℃ (160℃ fan, 350℉, Gas 4).
- Melt the butter in a large saucepan over a gentle heat along with the golden syrup and sugar. If you cut the butter into small pieces first, it will melt a lot quicker. As soon as the butter has melted, give everything a thorough stir.140 g salted butter, 125 g demerara sugar, 2 tbsp golden syrup
- Stir in the cinnamon until thoroughly combined. Then stir in the oats – again until thoroughly combined.½ tsp ground cinnamon, 275 g rolled oats (porridge oats)
- Stir the blackberries in as gently as you can, trying not to break them up if you can avoid it.150 g blackberries
- Gently press the mixture into a lined 23cm (9 inch) square shallow baking tin or silicone mould.
- Bake in the middle part of the oven for around 25 minutes. The top should be firm and golden all over, but not brown.
- Remove the tin to a cooling rack and leave well alone until it's stone cold. If you try and cut the flapjacks whilst they're still warm, they're likely to fall apart. They'll firm up as they cool. Be patient.
- Once properly cool, cut into twelve rectangles.
Anna says
These are super tasty and an inventive way of using up blackberries! Unfortunately my flapjack doesn’t really hold together that well, which makes it a little impractical. Apart from that, I’ve got no complaints about this recipe!
Choclette says
Hi Anna. I’m sorry the flapjacks fell apart on you. Did you follow my tips? I had to make this a few times before I got it right, but this recipe should work. It could be that you didn’t bake them for quite long enough, or that the blackberries weren’t dry when you added them or that you didn’t allow them to cool enough before cutting. It’s always an issue using fresh fruit. They’ll never be as sturdy as other flapjacks, but I still think well worth making.
Holly says
Used frozen blackberries and they worked beautifully. I also enjoyed the bit of cinnamon. It adds a nice seasonal touch.
Choclette says
Good to hear you’ve made these with frozen blackberries Holly. Thanks for letting us know they work.
Erin says
This blackberry flapjacks recipe is so good! I subbed vegan butter for dairy-based butter. The aroma and texture is so yummy. Thanks for this great recipe!
Choclette says
Glad you liked the recipe Erin. One of the many good things about flapjacks is that it’s very easy to make them vegan.
Mary says
I have made Flapjacks but never with fruit in them. These look wonderful. It will have to be frozen Blackberries. :))
Choclette says
Hahaha yes, guessing blackberries are very far from in season for you at the moment.
Tandy | Lavender and Lime says
I think I could devour the entire batch!
Choclette says
It’s very easy to do Tandy. One minute there are blackberry flapjacks and the next they all seem to have gone.
sherry says
I’ve never known what a flapjack is; just assumed it was some weird american pancake 🙂
Choclette says
Hahaha, yes I’m not sure why pancakes are called flapjacks in some parts of America. But flapjacks, as in oat bars, are a very British thing.