Cherry Bakewell Flapjack Bars - Gluten Free

Delicious, moist, flapjacks with the flavours of a cherry bakewell tart!

Since my daughter had to go on a gluten free diet, we've tried a fair few sweet and savoury snacks - some quite tasty, some... well... let's just say we didn't try them more than once!

If you're gluten free, you're probably aware of how horrendously expensive gluten free products are, with even just the basics often costing in excess of four times their gluten-y equivalent! So, it makes sense to make your own food from scratch, where you can, as it makes the cost a lot more manageable. Even when buying gluten free oats from the supermarket costs four times more than normal oats, you're still making a huge saving on baking your own treats with them - just imagine how much more it costs to buy the finished baked goods gluten free!

Anyway, I digress. There was a nice Bakewell-style slice that my children both liked, and so I came up with a home-made alternative - which I have made using predominantly oats, with plenty of almonds so it's more filling, and a bit healthier than just a cakey slice on top of pastry - plus who wants to make pastry, right?!

Makes 40 bars at 169 calories each (or cut these in half to make mini squares for lunchboxes / treats at 84 calories each, so they're under the 100 calorie mark!) - although if you want to cook fewer / use a smaller tin, you can easily halve this quantity, and just cook for about ten minutes or so less.

Raspberry Bakewell Magic Bean Cake (or Cherry Bakewell) - includes Thermomix method

Easy to make, moist and delicious, NO taste of beans (no, really!), and incredibly versatile.

And if you just can't decide whether to go for raspberry or cherry, the beauty of this is that you can make it half and half!

Cherry Bakewell on the top tier, Raspberry Bakewell below (all cooked in the same cake tin).

Moist and almond-y, this makes a great traybake cake and you'll have fun getting people trying to guess what the 'secret ingredient is'! (They won't).This would also be excellent with plums, apricots, nectarines or peaches (cut into quarters or eighths, depending on the size of the fruit) when they're in season, as stone fruits all go really well with almond flavours. The type of fruit you use will dictate how dense the cake is, and what kind of rise you get - e.g. cherries naturally sink towards the bottom and the top rises more, whereas raspberries sit on the top, weighing the cake down more and giving you a more dense, moist result - more of a 'slice' (as you can see above). This is best made in a 9 inch / 22.5cm square tin (or rectangular tin of a similar area).

Cherries to the left, raspberries to the right!

 Another great bonus of this cake, is that not only is it gluten free and grain free, you can also make it dairy free if you want, by using coconut oil (the solid white variety, preferably extra virgin) instead of butter. It's good as a hot dessert too, and needs less cooking time for this (see method).

 This cake gives you 16 portions from 210 calories per serving; or cut into 20, for 168 calories per portion.

If you wish to bake it as a round cake in a smaller,, taller tin, pour in half of the batter, scatter the raspberries over that (I'm not sure I'd recommend trying this with cherries), then pour the rest of the batter on top and adjust the cooking time accordingly. Alternatively, bake as individual little cupcakes / muffins and reduce the cooking time to around 20 minutes - pushing the raspberries into each muffin (or even stir into the mix) before baking rather than leaving them on top. [Calories in square brackets below]