Numberjacks: Number-flapjacks

My toddler has been insisting for ages that Numberjacks is called Numberflapjacks. She's had flapjack on a few occasions; obviously it's made an impression.

I would love to be able to say that I could whip up proper Numberjack-shaped flapjacks, but I don't think the properties of flapjack lend itself to sculpting. (There's a reason oat products didn't feature in my GCSE Art & Design course.)

But what is Numberjacks, I hear the uninitiated enquire? It's a bizarre series where animated number characters (with strangely stubby eyelashes) solve problems in the real world, such as foiling the evil Numbertaker from stealing all the legs from a chair, and various other objects. It's odd, but I like the vaguely educational slant it has to it. My daughter likes numbers at the moment, so she gets more out of it than, say, Alphablocks, at this stage.

But on to the flapjack! It will do the waistline no favours but gets hoovered up in no time. This makes a batch that fits our 25cm x 16cm tin.

Take:
150g butter
100g sugar
2 generous tablespoons of golden syrup
400g oats
1 large bar of chocolate (you'll probably only need half the bar for the flapjack, but we melted the whole bar and then the leftovers mysteriously vanished...)


Melt the butter, sugar and golden syrup over a gentle heat.
When melted, add the oats and stir well.
Press the mixture into a baking tin.
Bake at 180c for 25 minutes.
Now comes the tricky bit...
When the mixture is cooked, leave it to cool in the tin for a while.
Cut out number shapes from greaseproof paper to use as stencils.
Stick number shapes onto flapjack - I used a bit of golden syrup to stick them on, although I wonder whether sticking the numbers onto the mix before baking may have worked better.
Melt chocolate over a bowl of hot water.
Paint chocolate over flapjack, using the back of a teaspoon and being careful around the edges of the stencils.
Wait til chocolate has cooled so it is no longer runny but is not rock-solid, and carefully peel off stencils. (If you stick it in the fridge and let the chocolate set completely then it becomes tricky to get the stencils off. But if you peel it off before it has set enough, it will ooze.)

Ta-dah! Tasty number-flapjacks!