Western Morning News (Saturday)
FINEST FLAPJACKS
Martin Hesp discovers the mouth-wateringly soft and buttery deliciousness of flapjacks, a firm favourite in Britain for 400 years
One of the many delights in taking an interest in food and drink is that you can look into almost any aspect of the subject and come across unexpected avenues of fascination. Take the humble flapjack – on the face of it you may think it’s a sweet toothsome item you’d see on a WI stall or at a village fete, but step down the road of enquiry and you will find yourself deep in anecdote, controversy and history...
Like the fascinating fact that the flapjack has just celebrated its 400th birthday. And while you’re on a journey of flapjack discovery, you might also come across the two Devon women who have, over the past five years, built an impressive business around the concept of a flat-ish cake (some might use the word ‘bar’) cut into squares or rectangles, made from oats, butter, brown sugar and golden syrup.
More about Tavistock based Flapjackery in a moment, first what about the 400th anniversary of the famous “soft biscuit” or “cookie” or indeed “pancake”, which is what the Americans call flapjacks?
It was in 1620 that the word ‘flapjack’ was first recorded as a foodstuff in John Taylor’s poem ‘Jack a Lent’. Indeed, he used the American term pancake and was actually a bit sniffy about the invention of these flat Lenten cakes.
“There is a thing called wheaten flour, which the sulphery necromatic cooks do mingle with water, eggs, spice, and other tragical magical enchantments, and then they put it by little and little into a frying-pan of boiling suet, where it makes a confused dismal hissing,” wrote Taylor. “...until at last by the skill of the cook, it is transformed into the form of a flap-jack, which in our translation is called a pancake…”
Shakespeare refers to ‘flap-jacks’ in Pericles, Prince of Tyre… “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.”
Later, the word ‘flapjack’ would be used to describe something similar to an apple flan, but it wasn’t until 1935 that the term was first used to describe a food made of oats.
So much for the 400-year history, but what about the controversy?
I stepped right into it when my colleague Lucy Johnson (once of WMN equine fame) introduced me to the two charming ladies from Tavistock who run Flapjackery. I told Sally Jenkin and Carol Myott I would love to sample their now famous products, but thanks to the pandemic I was in line for a long-delayed dental appointment and didn’t want to risk losing any more fillings. And I said that because – wrongly – my idea of a flapjack was centred on something extremely sticky and hard as enamel-busting rock. It turns out I was imagining a confection that resembles a modern ‘muesli-bar’ rather than the traditional, and more appealing, item known as a flapjack.
“Our flapjacks are soft and buttery and sweet – so they are easy to eat,” said Sally and Carol – and I can now vouch for that important fact.
Let’s reinforce their stance by quoting a Somerset-based children’s writer and self-confessed flapjack connoisseur, Anthony Burt. On his internet blog Anthony states: “Some charlatans believe the flapjack should be crunchy or squeezed into a solid mass so hard your teeth can’t bite into it. Some cookie amateurs take the biscuit by believing the flapjack should be burnt!
“Umm, no! Flapjacks, my fellow cake consumers, are a wondrous creation of unique, moist naughtiness dripping in both British history and golden syrup.”
I get the feeling Anthony might approve of the products made by Flapjackery – and indeed, he’ll soon have an easy opportunity to find out because Sally and Carol are planning to open their second shop (the first has made great waves in their hometown of Tavistock) in the Somerset city of Wells as soon as Covid restrictions allow.
A second shop is, in itself, an impressive milestone for a company that’s only five years old. And it’s even more impressive for two women who, before 2015, were making various odds and edible ends on an amateur basis for Tavistock’s Country Market.
The pair now employ more than a dozen people, they have taken over not one but four units at the Tavistock industrial estate where Flapjackery is based, they have a core range of around 25 different flapjacks, and their plan is to open a third shop soon.
That’s all a long way from the picture the two women paint of their first days in business.
Back in 2015, Sally and Carol were making flapjacks in their individual kitchens at home (“not ideal because it meant we had to have two of everything”) having produced sausage rolls, sponges and other morsels for Tavistock’s Country
Market, which was the ‘professional’ offshoot of what had been the WI market.
“We were were on the committee – I was manager, in fact – but a few circumstances got in the way and I stopped cooking for the Country Market,” recalls Sally. “Carol stayed on, but she rang up one day and said: ‘Flapjacks are something we could make together’.
“I had been looking around and I’d seen stalls with lots of cup-cakes, brownies, pies, and so on and concluded that a market stall should have one product. We needed something that was different – something with a reasonable shelf-life and not too difficult to make.”
Flapjacks were indeed the answer, and soon Sally and Carol were in production in their kitchens and hitting the road so they could sell their wares at shows. A slightly
alarming prospect for two women who hadn’t really set out to build the UK’s premier flapjack business.
“The Bath and West was the most significant show we did in the early days and we were a bit daunted,” they told me. “We’d done the Devon County Show and the Exeter Food Festival – but those felt quite safe because they were on our doorstep. Then we chanced our arm at the Bath and West, and felt out of our depth,” laughed Carol.
“We were very happy with our product – but now here we were among big companies which had been exhibiting at big shows for years. They all had huge printed posters and special gazebos – we had some blue bedsheets on an old decorator’s table.”
“And next we went to the Good Food Show at the NEC in Birmingham – which is huge – and again, we were out of our depth the moment we got there, queuing in our old car among enormous trade vans,” added Sally. “I can’t say the other exhibitors were unfriendly – but there were a few sniggers when we were setting up.
“But that soon changed when large queues began to form at our stall – in fact the public seemed to enjoy that very aspect of what we were doing... I mean the sort of homespun, amateur look. And you only have to catch a sniff of the flapjacks... they give off a lovely buttery sweet smell.
“And also, we were very lucky in that the other exhibitors were soon buying the flapjacks as something to have with their early morning coffee. They were eating them on their own stands, telling their customers how delicious they were – and pointing in our direction!”
If that sounds a good way to go, then so does the fortuitous experience the pair had when expanding their business back in Tavistock.
“We couldn’t carry on making flapjacks in our domestic kitchens at home, and at exactly the right time we were fortunate to be offered a unit on the local industrial estate. But we were expanding fast and soon we were thinking we’d have to move somewhere bigger, when the carpet centre next door became available. So we took that over,” explained Sally.
“Then the same thing happened again with the stove centre next door to that – and then again when the neighbouring print business decided to move. We’ve just kept expanding and West Devon Council which owns the estate has been very helpful.”
Covid meant a month of closure during the first lockdown, but soon the online side of the business was buzzing and Flapjackery has been in production ever since.
But, unusually given the present rate of shop closures, it is the future of the traditional high street which Sally and Carol are feeling positive about.
“We think small specialist shops are the future for the high street. Our first shop in Tavistock is incredibly popular – and we are sure the one in Wells will be the same. Next we are planning to open one in Minehead on the Somerset coast.”
Which happens to be very good news for this particular food writer because Minehead is my nearest shopping town. And having been sent a tray of Flapjackery’s finest flapjacks, I can guarantee I’ll be a regular customer...