Grandad Alder's Original Recipe

When I was a kid, me and my four siblings used to love going to my grandad’s garden parties. Not just because they were good, but because of him.

If you were anywhere near Solihull back then, you probably knew Ian Alder.
He was one of those people who just knew everyone. More importantly, everyone knew him. His phone was always going. Neighbours were always popping round. There was always something happening.

He organised holidays for groups of OAPs, ran events, helped out at markets and car boots. He was constantly doing something for someone. A proper community man. And whenever he hosted one of his garden parties, it wasn’t small. There’d be tables out, gazebos up, people chatting, cups of tea going round, and somewhere in the middle of it all, trays of flapjacks.

We didn’t care about much else. We knew if we were going to grandad’s, there’d be flapjacks. Not just any flapjacks. The best flapjacks. We’d had shop ones. We’d had café ones. None of them even came close. There was just something about his. They were soft, gooey, ridiculously sweet and somehow impossible to stop eating. The kind where you tell yourself “just one more” about ten times.

The weird thing is, as a kid, I never even thought about how they were made. You just assume adults can do things you can’t. Like it’s some kind of magic. It never crossed my mind that I could just… ask. It wasn’t until I was older that I finally did.

He wrote the recipe down for me on a scrap bit of paper. Nothing fancy. Barely any instructions. Just enough to give it a go. So I tried, and honestly, it wasn’t even close. Something was off. I couldn’t figure it out. I tried again, same result. At that point I thought either I’m doing something seriously wrong or he’s left something out. So I asked him to show me.

He took me into the kitchen, started pulling ingredients out like he always had everything ready for anything, and just got to work. Watching him, it didn’t look complicated. Most of it was what you’d expect. Melt the butter, mix in sugar and syrup, add the oats, Simple.

But then he pointed out the little things, the bits you don’t think matter, but do. One thing I still use now is letting the mixture sit. Once everything’s mixed, just leave it. Let it soak. Let it come together properly. It changes everything, the texture, the way it holds, the way it eats.

But even with all that, there was one part of the process that stood out. One step that wasn’t obvious. One thing that made his flapjacks different. The thing that made us all obsessed with them as kids.

That part? I’m keeping that one to myself. Not to be quirky, but because that’s the heart of it. That’s the bit that turned a normal flapjack into something people remember. It’s the core of what L.A.D Slab is now.

My goal isn’t just to make flapjacks. It’s to recreate that feeling. Turning up somewhere and knowing something good is waiting. Sitting around with people you like. Eating something you can’t stop going back to. That’s what his were. That is what I’m trying to pass on.

If you’ve had a box already, you’ll know what I mean. If you haven’t yet...

...you probably should.