Facts About Flapjack
In the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, Ireland, and Newfoundland a flapjack refers to a baked bar, cooked in a flat oven tin and cut into rectangles, made from rolled oats, fat, brown sugar and usually golden syrup. In other English-speaking countries, the same item is called by different names, such as muesli bar, cereal bar, oat bar or a slice.
The snack is similar to the North American granola bar, and in the United States and most of Canada the term flapjack is a widely but lesser-used term for pancake.
Varieties
As well as being baked at home, they are widely available in shops, ready-packaged, often with extra ingredients such as chocolate, dried fruit such as glace cherries, nuts, yoghurt and toffee pieces or coatings, either as individual servings or full unsliced trayfuls. A variant of such available in shops in the United Kingdom is known as the "Bakewell flapjack". Some flapjacks may contain maple syrup. They are usually an alternative to a biscuit (cookie) or cake, and textures range from soft and moist to dry and crisp. Because of the high levels of fat and calories in traditional recipes, some "diet" versions are available with lower fat and calorie content.
History
The Oxford English Dictionary records the word "flapjack" as being used as early as the beginning of the 16th century, although at this time it seems to have been a flat tart. Shakespeare refers to "flap-jacks" in Pericles, Prince of Tyre, but this is one of the many anachronisms in his historical plays and does not suggest that he thought it was a middle eastern dish, merely a common English dessert of the time:
- "Come, thou shant go home, and we'll have flesh for holidays, fish for fasting-days, and moreo'er puddings and flap-jacks, and thou shalt be welcome."
- Act II Scene I
Later, flapjack would be used to describe something similar to an apple flan, but it is not until 1935 that the word is first used to describe a food made of oats. In the UK, this usage has mostly superseded earlier recipes.
In the United States and Canada, "flapjack" is a widely but lesser-used term for pancake.
United Kingdom