In all truthfulness, this is not the recipe which I hoped to share today.

I’ve been thinking for a while about doing a vegan recipe. I had a can of pumpkin puree in the cupboard which I bought on a whim, and I thought I would try to do something with that. I planned to make nutty pumpkin muffins with a molten date caramel core. The batter looked promising, but the final results were disappointing (I’m not even sure they were edible).

It was time to come up with a plan B. I had about half the date caramel left (which was really more of a date paste). I also realised that I had some dairy free chocolate chips in the cupboard. The thought struck me: flapjack. Cake can go wrong in so many ways, especially when you attempt to make it vegan and gluten free. But flapjack? Making a flapjack vegan requires one simple substitution (dairy-free spread instead of butter). This can’t go wrong.

Sure enough, the flapjacks turned out well! Sticky, golden and toothsome, with a sweet layer of chocolate and date paste in the middle. Who said vegans have to live off celery sticks and hummus?

Vegan Chocolate and Date flapjack:

150g dates

1 tbsp almond butter

Almond milk

Vanilla extract

50g dairy-free chocolate chips (I used a mix of white and milk chocolate)

500g pure oats

8 tbsps golden syrup

200g light muscovado sugar

250g dairy-free spread

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and line a deep pan with baking paper.
2. Combine the dates with the almond butter, vanilla extract and a pinch of salt in a food processor. Add splashes of almond milk until you have a paste.
3. Melt the spread, golden syrup and sugar together, then add them to the oats and stir to combine.
4. Place half the oat mixture into the bottom of the pan in an even layer. Then spread the date paste on top of this layer.
5. Scatter the chocolate chips over the date paste layer. Then place the rest of the oats on top.
6. Bake for half an hour until golden, then leave to cool completely before slicing.