This weekend it’s the annual Dalemain Marmalade Festival in Cumbria, which I’m really looking forward to. I went the year before last (though was in London stressing over finals last year), and it was so fun – I met Dan Lepard and ate Pam Corbin’s welsh cakes, and tasted so much marmalade that I didn’t eat any for about a month afterwards! This year Mum and I have entered our own jars in the competition (wish us luck!), so it’ll be fun to see how we’ve done, too!

And so, in keeping with the marmalade spirit, this week I made marmalade flapjack. Which is pretty good – if I do say so myself.

Ingredients (makes 12 pieces):
– 300g butter
– 250g light brown muscovado sugar
– 2tbsp marmalade
– 2tbsp golden syrup
– 400g porridge oats (use gluten-free if preferred)
– 100g sultanas
– 50g sunflower seeds
– zest of 1 orange
– 6 cardamom pods, ground (or 1tsp if ready ground)

1. Preheat the oven to 150°C, and grease a 20cm square baking tin

2. In a large saucepan, gently melt the butter, sugar, marmalade and golden syrup together.

3. Mix in the oats, sultanas, seeds, spice and orange zest.

4. Tip the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 50-60 minutes, until golden. Run a knife around the edges of the tin and lightly score marks where it will be cut (you need to wait until it’s cooled more before you cut it, but scoring will help when you do).

5. Cut into bars. You can eat your flapjack as it is, or try drizzling over some orange water icing (icing sugar mixed with enough orange juice to create a runny icing) and orange zest. If you’re feeling particularly indulgent, you could even drizzle over some melted dark chocolate instead.