Time is precious, there never seem to be enough hours in the day to the things you have to do, let alone the things you want to do. After a busy day on the go, cooking a meal is effort enough – and then there’s the kids or your partner (or, let’s face it, yourself) wanting dessert!

But baking doesn’t have to be a chore. In fact, baking quick recipes can often be comforting to people and is even thought to improve your mood. The simpler recipes can often give you the most joy.

It’s been suggested that the pleasure that you can get from the end product inherently makes you happy[1]. Plus, you get a delicious treat out of it! It’s win win!

We have compiled some simple, quick recipes for you that are easy to make and even easier to enjoy!

Did you know…?

Baking is a really useful skill to teach your children. Did you know that children between the ages of 8 and 10 are using devices and looking at screens for an average of 6 hours a day?[2], and this statistic only grows as they get older.

Get them doing something practical. Cooking is a vital skill for a child to learn, and baking desserts is fun! It can help them to learn how to manage time, practice their maths skills, and most importantly of all – it’s a fun pastime that allows you to spend quality time with your little ones.

Quick Flapjack Recipes

Flapjacks are a popular traybake that originate from the UK. So popular, in fact, that William Shakespeare featured them in his play, Jacobean, way back in 1607!

These versatile sweet treats are a great addition to lunchboxes, but just as good if you fancy a sweet snack at home during the day.

15-Minute Flapjacks

Whip up this classic flapjack recipe if you want a sweet snack, and why not sprinkle some cinnamon over the top to add a warm, spiced flavour to them?

Peanut Butter Flapjacks

When you combine peanut butter and chocolate, you can’t go wrong! This recipe elevates the simple flapjack to give you a new depth of flavour.

End your meal on a high with these quick desserts

A quick dessert at the end of a meal is often the best part. Satisfy the sweet tooth of your family and friends by making these tasty, sweet treats!

Victoria Sandwich Smile

Arguably one of the most British Desserts you can get, this aptly named dessert is bound to make you and your guests smile! Top tip: To check if your cake is cooked, lightly press the top of the cake. If it springs back, it’s done.

Top tip: To check if your cake is cooked, lightly press the top of the cake. If it springs back, it’s done.

Golden Syrup Lemon Drizzle Loaf Cake

This zingy cake gives you a delicious citrus flavour and is the perfect accompaniment to a cup of tea.

Top tip: Press a toothpick, or something similar, in the centre of your cake. If it comes out clean, then your cake is cooked!

No-Bake Caramel Pumpkin Cheesecake

Miss the pumpkin flavours of Autumn? Break the rules and make this delicious pumpkin cheesecake to satisfy that craving – we won’t tell anyone! This may take some time to set but doesn’t take long to prepare.

Tips to make these quick recipes even faster!

An electric whisk can make the process of combining ingredients a lot quicker, and it means you’re not killing your arm in the process… Although, take care when using them as it is possible to over-whisk your mixture which can result in a flat cake, and nobody wants that! Use your recipe as a guide to prevent this from happening.

To speed up the baking process (and make your life easier), there are a few things you can do: Read through the recipe before you start, so you know exactly what you need to do and when. Make sure all ingredients are out of the cupboards and fridge, so they are ready for you to measure out. Pre-heat the oven, so you can put your bake in straight away when you’ve finished preparing it.

Before you can fill or decorate your cake, you need to make sure it is completely cool, otherwise your cake will end up a melted mess! Place your cake in the fridge or freezer to speed up the cooling process.

If your recipe needs room temperature butter but you forgot to get your butter out of the fridge, don’t panic! Fill a glass with hot water and leave it for a minute to let the glass heat up, then empty the glass and place it over your butter. After a few minutes, your butter will be ‘at room temperature. Take care when putting hot water in your glass, water that is too hot can cause the glass to crack!

If you have multiple recipes you want to make, don’t feel like you have to give up loads of your time. For example, if you want to make a cake and some flapjacks, start making your flapjacks when your cake is in the oven baking. Then you get two delicious treats in half the time!

Probably the thing that all cooks dread, cleaning up the mess when the meal is over. Clean up as you go to make your life easier. Wipe the sides down if you spill some flour, put dirty dishes in the dishwasher when you’re done with them, and put your ingredients away when you have finished using them. All of these things make the final cleaning up process as painless as possible.

Don’t forget Lyle’s Golden Syrup!

Our range of Lyle’s Golden Syrup adds a gorgeous flavour to these quick recipes, making them irresistible to anyone who comes across them. Explore our range of Golden Syrup to take your baking to the next level.

[1] MiNDFOOD [Online] Why cooking makes you happy [written 27th July 2020] Available from: https://rb.gy/6lieg2

[2] OSF HealthCare [Online] Screen Time for Kids; How Much is Too Much? [written 10th January 2020] Available from: https://rb.gy/wprk3v

Find the perfect St. Patrick’s Day recipes to serve for this year’s festivities!

What is St. Patrick’s Day?

St. Patrick’s Day, also known as the feast day of St. Patrick, is the anniversary of the death of the patron saint of Ireland. He is celebrated for bringing Christianity to the Emerald Isle, and one of the most famous legends of the saint is using a Shamrock (Irish three-leaved clover) to explain the Holy Trinity – the father, son, and the holy spirit.

As the holiday evolved over the years, it has become a celebration of Irish culture. People come together to drink, feast on traditional Irish dishes, dance to Irish music, and mark the occasion by wearing green clothes!

St. Patrick’s Day Recipes

The feast day of St. Patrick deserves some delectable treats to go with it! Explore our range of recipes to feature on this year’s menu.

A St. Patrick’s Day Bundt cake recipe

The word ‘Bundt’ was created by the designer of the Bundt tin, Dave Dalquist. It is derived from the German word ‘Bundkucken’, which translates to ‘a cake for a gathering’. Dalquist decided to add a ‘t’ to Bundt to allow him to trademark the name.

This vegan sweet potato Bundt cake recipe is a great choice for a celebration. If you don’t own a Bundt tin, don’t worry, this recipe can also be made into a loaf or cupcakes!

A St. Patrick’s Day cookie recipe

These scrumptious chocolate chip cookies are the perfect snack for any occasion and are even more desirable as it contains an infusion of our famous Lyle’s Golden Syrup.

Try adding some creamy Irish liquor to the recipe (or enjoy a glass of Irish liquor or stout on the side while you eat them) to give these cookies a delicious St. Patrick’s Day twist.

Lyle’s Sweet and Tangy Salad Dressing

Drizzle our quick and simple salad dressing over your green-leaf salad to give you the perfect green recipe for St. Patrick’s Day!

An easy St. Patrick’s Day cake recipe

Our popular coffee and walnut cake is decorated with caramelised walnuts to give it an added crunch.

Why not add some Irish whiskey to this classic recipe to turn it into an Irish Coffee and Walnut Cake!

If you’re more of a cupcake fan, try this recipe instead

Our Golden Syrup cupcakes are irresistible snacks perfect for sharing with your family and friends (or not!). The addition of Lyle’s Golden Syrup makes it impossible to just have one.

You can add green food colouring to the buttercream to make them a great addition to the table at your St. Patrick’s Day party!

Don’t Forget The Secret Ingredient…

Elevate all of your St. Patrick’s Day treats with Lyle’s Golden Syrup.

Spending time with loved ones over Easter is lovely, but when it’s your turn to host, it can quickly become very unnerving.

Spending time with loved ones over Easter is lovely, but when it’s your turn to host, it can quickly become very unnerving.

If you’re struggling with ideas, don’t panic! We’ve got your back.

Make it a weekend to remember by hosting your own Easter-themed Olympics to help keep the kids (and adults!) entertained during your party. After all, there’s nothing wrong with a bit of healthy competition!

Let the Games Begin…

All you need to do is encourage your guests to take part in a series of games and offer points out to the winners and runners up.

Then at the end of the competition, the person with the most points is your Easter Olympic champion. You could even give bronze, silver and gold Easter Eggs out as prizes!

We’ve pulled together some fun games you can use in your Easter Olympics event. But most importantly they are easy to set up, so you won’t be running around like Usain Bolt before your guests arrive.

The question is, are your guests up for the challenge?

Spark your competitor’s creativity by having an egg decoration contest. Give them a choice of art supplies and let their imagination run wild. You could give points to the best-decorated egg or the most inventive design.

Get everyone hopping around like the Easter Bunny with a simple sack race. All you need are some old potato sacks, or if you’re feeling creative, find some Easter-themed materials and make your own!

You can’t have Easter without a good, old-fashioned Easter egg hunt! You could keep it traditional and offer points based on who finds the most eggs. But if you want to add a special twist, you can include a challenge or riddle with each egg or create an Easter-themed scavenger hunt.

Give your competitors two bowls and a spoon and fill one of the bowls with jelly beans. Then they will need to use their spoon to move the jelly beans from one bowl to another, the first person to do this wins. But there’s a catch, they have to hold the spoon in their mouth – well, we couldn’t make it too easy for them!

Often the simplest activities are the most fun! If you’re worried about making a mess, you could use plastic eggs, or if the weather is nice, you could even use water balloons!

Who needs a donkey anyway? Give everyone a different colour circle, blindfold them and watch the madness unfold. Whoever gets closest to the tail area wins.

Test the accuracy of your competitors by giving them three plastic eggs and offering them a point for every egg they manage to throw into the Easter basket.

Reward their Hard Work with Some Delicious Treats

After an afternoon of fun, your competitors would have worked up an appetite!

Check out our Easter-themed bakes and reward your Olympians with some tasty treats worthy of a gold medal!

If it’s not broken, don’t fix it! Treat your dad to this classic recipe, topped with our delicious Lyle’s Golden Syrup.

Another American classic, this recipe gives you the perfect combination of sweet and salty flavours!

If you want a unique recipe, these cereal pancakes are the one for you! A fun twist on classic breakfast food.

Everyone loves cake, right? Bake him a delicious cake to make him feel special!

Although the Platinum Jubilee celebrations come with a whopping four-day bank holiday (I bet you’re counting down the days, we certainly are!) – it most importantly marks Queen Elizabeth II as the longest-reigning monarch in history. That’s a pretty big deal. With such a big accomplishment, comes an even bigger celebration, as the whole country will be coming together to celebrate with The Queen. In this article, discover how the country is celebrating and explore some of our popular recipes to help you and your loved ones mark this momentous occasion!

Street parties have been an essential part of British culture since World War I, when ‘Peace Teas’ were hosted around the country to celebrate the end of the war. Host a street party to celebrate the Queen’s reign with your neighbours, and have some delicious food too! If you’re feeling creative, why not make your own decorations? Spruce up your streets with bunting, flags, tablecloths and other patriotic items to bring your community together. There are some things you need to bear in mind when organising a street party, so take a look at the Government’s website to see the rules, regulations and some myths debunked.

The Big Lunch is a tradition that started in 2009 and will be taking place on Sunday 5th June this year. The Big Lunch can be as big or as small as you want. It can be anything from a small get together in your garden, to a street party with all of your neighbours. The event aims to bring people together, allowing guests to get to know each other, form friendships and ignite a community spirit. Every person is supposed to bring their own food and drinks to add to the table and share, then everyone can tuck in and enjoy! If you wish, you could assign which guests bring sweet and savoury foods to make sure you get a variety of options. As much as we all love the thought of a table full of cake, it might get a bit sickly after a while. Bringing the community together is also a great opportunity to raise some money for charity, whether you fundraise for your local community or raise money for a charity close to everyone’s hearts.

This showstopper is named for the Queen herself, so it’s bound to get the royal seal of approval from your party guests.

This family favourite is set to give your table an extra zing, and a perfect addition to any afternoon tea.

What’s more British than a Victoria sandwich? This simple cake with the classic cream and jam filling is a crowd-pleaser that won’t take you hours to make!

Another firm favourite, the delicious flavours of coffee and Lyle’s Golden Syrup make this cake even more irresistible.

Love it or hate it, this beautifully spiced carrot cake with citrus-flavoured icing will be sure to change the minds of any sceptics!

This fun take on a flapjack gives you the delightful texture of a flapjack, with all the flavours of a carrot cake. If you ask us, that sounds amazing!

This delicious recipe allows you to add another British classic to your meal, as well as give you a taste of summer.

Give some of your guests a taste of nostalgia with this school dinner classic.

All of these Platinum Jubilee recipes have one thing in common – they all have the glorious addition of our famous Lyle’s Golden Syrup. Explore our range of products and start baking now!

Flapjacks are known for being ridiculously simple to make, but if you are in pursuit of perfection, here are a few tips which will help you reach the next level in flapjack tastiness.

• Lining the baking tin with parchment paper makes it easy to remove the flapjacks. Once they have cooled in the tin you can slide the whole flapjack on its paper onto a board to cut into pieces.

• To measure the Lyle’s Golden Syrup use a pastry brush to lightly brush the measuring spoon with vegetable oil or heat the spoon in a jug of boiled water instead as the syrup will slip then off the spoon. Alternatively, using digital scales, measure the Lyle’s Golden Syrup® directly into the saucepan.

• If you prefer a thinner and crisper flapjack, use a Swiss roll tin, approximately 28x18cm(12x7in) or a brownie tin can be used if you don’t have a shallow square tin.

• Flapjacks can be frozen, but those containing moist fruit such as apple or blueberries may soften on thawing.

• You can use salted or unsalted butter in flapjacks but if using unsalted butter add a pinch of salt as well since it will enhance the flavour of the oats

• Don’t forget to mark the flapjacks into squares or oblongs whilst they are still warm since it will make it easier to cut them up when they have cooled and they will crumble less.

• Press the mixture firmly down into the baking tin with a palette knife as this will ensure that the flapjacks are less likely to crumble and fall apart.

Ready to test those out? Find all our delicious flapjack variations below: