Alternative Binding Ingredient for Sugar in Flapjacks? (British style) First, I'm talking about oat bars not pancakes.



The basic recipe for these flapjacks is that you get some oats with a little flour and chopped nuts. Then you melt together butter, sugar and golden syrup. You mix wet with dry and oven bake.

I'd like to reduce the amount of sugar being put in, without making the flapjacks more brittle and crumbly. I intend to try using honey, but does anyone have alternative suggestions? I'm not concerned that they wont be sweet enough because I primarily want a more savoury nut and oat taste.
This might affect the texture too much, but if you're willing to experiment you could try some mashed banana.

I made these banana and oat cookies a while ago, which have the ratio of 1 banana to ~90g of oats. The recipe says to blend the oats, though I didn't bother, and the cookies came out pretty chewy.

The recipe is way too heavy on banana to come out like a flapjack, but you might be able to use a little to offset a reduction in sugar in a proper flapjack recipe. I'm not speaking from experience though, so no promises that it won't be a disaster!