Flapjack

flapjack a term usually denoting a thick chewy biscuit made from rolled oats, sugar, butter, and golden syrup baked in a flat tin. The mixture is cut into squares or fingers while still warm.

The name is also used in Britain and the USA for a griddle cake like a drop scone. In this sense it is close to pancake. Indeed the terms seem to have been synonymous in the past. ‘Pancake or fritter or flap-iacke,’ wrote John Taylor (1634). Gillian Edwards (1970), who cites this reference, has an interesting paragraph about the origin of the term:

Flap-jacks were so called because it was the custom to ‘flap’ them, or throw them up and catch them in the pan. Flap here means ‘to toss with a smart movement; to throw down suddenly,’ the sense being an echo of the sound. Halliwell records as a dialect phrase in 1847 ‘Flap a froize, to turn in the pan without touching it.’ This general flapping and tossing added much to the fun of the feast.