This week, we come down from the rather refined cheffy atmosphere of last week’s fish recipe and get stuck into some good old-fashioned home baking.

And it’s a recipe that, for almost my entire cooking career, I’ve been searching for without success. In the same way that I only found the perfect parkin recipe about five years ago, this one has evaded me...until now.

It’s one of the simplest recipes in baking, and yet it can be one of the easiest to get slightly wrong, with disappointing results. I’m talking about flapjacks. Easy, one thinks, it’s just oats, golden syrup and butter, right? Well, that’s technically pretty much it, but there are nuances and a fine balance to be struck, and I’ve fallen foul of many versions in the past.

Some have been too sticky and sickly, some baked hard into inedible bricks with the texture of loft insulation. And then, the other week, I found the perfect flapjack. It was at a nice little hotel called Raithwaite Hall, just outside Whitby, and these flapjacks appeared at breakfast time, along with the cereals and yoghurts. They were quite the most delicious flapjacks I’d ever eaten; crunchy and buttery with a slight chew and bag of golden syrup sweetness.

With a cup of espresso they were simply brilliant. So, I took a punt and asked if I might pinch the recipe. Chef was only too happy to share the secret - it’s nice that we are in a new era of catering where chefs share and collaborate unlike the bad old days when recipes were ferociously-guarded secrets and certainly not given up freely to potential rivals - and I rushed home, desperate to get baking. I do so love a flapjack.

For me, and I’ve said it here many times, my go-to sweet treat is something containing that sweet cereal-y flavour. I’d have it above chocolate or fruit any day. It’s a filling experience, both spiritually and physically. I must mention here that, clearly, flapjacks aren’t everyone’s cup of tea.

A reviewer of ours on a certain crowd-sourced appraisal site I won’t dignify by mentioning complained about one of our baked pastries as being “just like a flapjack”, the suggestion being that this was a negative. I couldn’t agree less - a lot of traybakes can only dream of becoming as satisfying as that luscious golden treat, with its unique chewy, crumbly texture and sugary rush. I would rate it as a café essential, along with the fruitcake and the brownie.

So, having established that I think a great deal of the humble flapjack, let’s crack on.

I tinkered about with the quantities a little, but the basic recipe is about the same as I was given. The surprise inclusion is the cornflakes, but it makes perfect sense, as they provide a lovely light texture and satisfying crunch.

This is, as you’ll see, an incredibly easy recipe, and as such is a great one for the beginner or those helping children to get the cooking bug.

For the little ones that sit watching The Great British Bake-Off with eagerness, but who can’t quite reach the work surfaces yet, this is a wonderful way to start. It’s not very messy, takes only a few minutes to prepare and cook, and, perhaps most crucially, can be eaten within minutes of exiting the oven.

I guarantee you won’t need another flapjack recipe ever again.

FOR THE FLAPJACKS:

400g butter

140g golden syrup

400g unrefined golden caster sugar

200g oats

200g self-raising flour

300g crushed cornflakes

Maldon salt

EXTRAS:

A suitable baking tin or tray

METHOD:

Heat the oven to 190ºC / Gas 5. Melt the butter, sugar and golden syrup over gentle heat in a pan until smooth.

Sift the flour into a large bowl, and add the other dry ingredients. Pour in the liquid and mix quickly until you have a uniform mixture.

Press this into the tin, making sure it’s even and well-compacted.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the top is just beginning to take a little colour, and cool on a wire rack before turning out and cutting into thick slabs.

They taste amazing right then, but the taste and texture seem to improve with a couple of days’ storage.