Oatmeal, Coconut and Macadamia Nut Cookies

Do you bake to create something new? To recreate a taste memory? To use up a surplus of ingredients? Or just because you need something sweet? I bake for all of those reasons, but this recipe is one in a series of cookies I've been making over the past few years trying to recreate a teenage indulgence. I was never a mall rat, but whenever I did go I would pick up a cookie at a famous cookie franchise. It was called Mrs. something or other... They were huge and chewy with a centre verging on raw. I loved them and could make one last all day. Like I said, they were huge. This chain sold lots of cookies but this one was my favourite for a number of reasons: it did not contain chocolate; it had coconut; and macadamia nuts. Oh and I did I mention the size? It does matter.
A few years ago I was at a mall and went to pick one up only to find they had been discontinued for years! Like I said, I'm not a big shopper. I was disappointed so I set out to make them myself. Over the years I've taken a few cracks at the recipe, but my results have always been too cakey or too crisp. Sometimes the cookie didn't spread at all, other times it spread all over the place. I even tried to adapt a few ANZAC biscuits recipes, as they are full of oats and coconut, but they weren't quite right either. My most recent attempt is the first I have been mostly happy with. It's almost thick enough and chewy--almost too chewy. I used golden syrup instead of white sugar along with old-fashioned rolled oats and shredded coconut, but will try quick oats and flaked coconut next time. And maybe change the ratio of flour to coconut/oats to give me exactly what I'm looking for. That said, these were delicious and if you're a cookie dough monster like me you'll love them raw or baked.

Oatmeal Coconut and Macadamia Nut Cookies
Adapted from Chewy, Gooey, Crispy, Crunchy by Alice Medrich
2 cups rolled oats
¼ cup water
5.625 ounces/1¼ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
pinch freshly grated nutmeg
8 ounces/1 cup unsalted butter
5.25 ounces/¾ cup packed light brown sugar
¼ cup golden syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1 cup roasted, salted macadamia nuts, coarsely chopped
1 cup sweetened coconut

1. Place the oats in a bowl and sprinkle with the water, stirring to combine. Set aside. Whisk the flour, baking soda and nutmeg together in a medium bowl.
2. Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Take off the stove and add the sugar, syrup, vanilla and salt and stir well. Add the egg and beat in. Add the flour mixture, oats, nuts and coconut and stir just until combined.
3. Cover the dough and let it stand at room temperature for a couple of hours, or ideally overnight in the fridge. This helps to moisten the oats thoroughly.
4. Preheat oven to 350℉. Line baking sheets with ungreased parchment. Scoop 2 level tablespoons of dough for each cookie and flatten into a small hockey puck shape. Bake 10-12 minutes, just until cookies are golden on the edge. Slide parchment and cookies onto a rack to cool. Store airtight.

Raspberry and Honey Cranachan

This is my last auto-scheduled post, and I should be on a plane home by the time this is posted. I can't wait to get back to my own kitchen to bake up some Thanksgiving goodies!

I used red and golden raspberries, along with tayberries

Funny name, isn't it? Now, if I was one of those bloggers that did tons of research into how foods got their names, I'd have a story to tell. But I'm not that person. What I can tell you is that this dessert is Scottish and delicious. When I went to Edinburgh for work, this was one of the things on my to-do list. I wasn't sure how to pronounce it, but I knew that any combination of raspberries, cream, whisky and oats was bound to be amazing. I tried it in a few places just to confirm, because I do believe in some kinds of research. I even ate this combination atop hot oatmeal at a very cool spot at the Edinburgh Farmers' Market called Stoats Oats. It was a porridge bar where you could get any number of interesting toppings on your bowl of oatmeal. It was July, but freezing and pouring rain, so this was a Saturday morning treat. Here's the link to the breakfast dish, but I recommend you have the dessert version. This would also be delicious with stewed rhubarb (of course!) or other berries or cherries in season.

Raspberry and Honey Cranachan
Source: River Cottage Every Day
Serves 4
50 grams rolled oats
2 tablespoons whisky
250 ml double or whipping cream
2 tablespoons honey
250 grams raspberries

1. Warm a small frying pan over low heat. Add rolled oats and stir until they are golden and toasted. Watch carefully as they burn easily. Transfer to a plate to cool.
2. Stir the whisky and cream together and whisk until it holds soft peaks. Lightly crush a few of the raspberries so their juices run. I didn't crush them enough, so my cream was pale and full of whole berries. Not as pretty, but tasty. Fold all the raspberries, honey and oats into the cream, spoon into small glasses or bowls and serve immediately.

Digestive Cookies

If this sounds like some sort of health food to you, relax and keep reading! Digestive cookies (or biscuits) are a common item on cookie shelves in Canada and the UK. I seem to like making cookies that are easy to find in stores, as the oreos, graham crackers and this recipe show. I'm not a (complete) nut, it's just that homemade is better! Digestives are available plain or chocolate dipped and are the perfect partner for a cup of tea or coffee. They are often used as cheesecake bases, but are also an ideal accompaniment to a cheese plate.

With cheese or with tea, you'll love them

Here in Canada, there is usually only one brand of digestives available, but when I was in England, Scotland and Ireland people had very strong opinions about which brand I should buy. I was a very good sport and tried them all! My first batch were crisper than store-bought, but I couldn't stop nibbling on them. The flavour was a bit sweet and salty, with a wonderful grain taste and texture. For the second batch, I made balls of dough and pressed them with the 'homemade' stamp. These were thicker than the first batch, and I didn't bake them as long, making them soft and crumbly. I really can't decide which I like better as they were both so good. I even made an ice cream sandwich with them, but I left it in the freezer when I left town, so I can't tell you too much about that!
I used whole wheat flour from a local farm, and it was milled from Red Fife wheat right in front of me at the farmers' market. You can also use half or all spelt flour instead, and while I also bought freshly milled spelt flour I haven't tried making the digestive with that yet.

Digestives
Makes 35-40
From River Cottage Every Day

250 grams/8.8 ounces whole wheat flour
250 grams/8.8 ounces quick-cooking oatmeal
125 grams/4.4 ounces soft brown sugar
2 teaspoons fine sea salt (this gave a distinct salty edge--can halve it if you like)
2 teaspoons baking powder
250 grams/8.8 ounces unsalted butter, chilled and cubed
about 1 tablespoon milk (I needed a bit more)

1. Combine all dry ingredients in a food processor and pulse to combine. This amount filled my food processor, but it was fine. Add butter and but in until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. You can also do this easily by hand--it's a bit like making pie crust.
2. Gradually add the milk and pulse until it comes together into a slightly sticky dough. I found it easiest to do this by hand, after transferring it to a large bowl. 
3. Flatten into a disc, wrap in plastic and refrigerate about 30 minutes, or for a few days. Remove from the fridge about an hour before you want to bake it, as it gets very hard.
4. Preheat oven to 180℃/350℉. Dust the table and dough with flour and roll to 3-4 mm thickness/¹⁄₈", or thicker for a softer, crumblier cookie. The dough is sticky and crumbly, but if you are gentle it's easy to roll. Cut with a 6-7 cm (2½") cutter and transfer to a parchment lined baking sheet.
5. Bake for 10 minutes, checking after 5. You want them to be golden brown around the edges and lightly coloured on top. Let cool on the baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to a rack to cool completely.

Oatmeal Nutmeg Scones

I was so happy that the May picks for Tuesdays with Dorie had lots of breakfast recipes. 

Scones are so tasty, and I can usually find the time to make them. I had noticed at this recipe before, but this was the kick in the pants I needed to actually make it. Nutmeg is a favourite spice, though I find it works better in a background role than as a star, so I was curious to see how these would turn out. I decreased the sugar a bit and was generous with the freshly grated nutmeg, and these were a winner. As always, they were best when still warm, and I ate them plain. Cooled scones have no appeal for me, so I didn't touch them after they had cooled down--I gave them away to someone less fussy than me. I do still have a few unbaked in the freezer for a leisurely morning, but that may have to wait a bit. This is a busy month for work, and I am now another year older, so I am slowing down.

;)

Actually, I'm pretty tired after a long weekend and thinking that 5 straight days of kindergarten is going to make baking a challenge. See you on Friday with the Daring Baker's Challenge, as I've got that one made and eaten! Oh, and for the scone recipe, go and visit Patricia at Life with a Whisk.

Quest for rhubarb, and a crisp

I went to 8 stores in one day and all I brought you was this lousy picture. Sorry. The day the April recipes were announced I started looking for rhubarb, as I'd already been craving it for a while. I went to half a dozen stores, but no luck. I didn't worry too much, as I still had a week before leaving town, The next week the quest started in earnest. I tried everywhere but the closest I came was a shelf labelled 'rhubarb' in the freezer of a health food store. Even the fancy fruit store didn't have any imported rhubarb. What to do? Skipping the recipe was out of the question. I almost bought a jar of rhubarb jam, but worried that it'd be too sweet. I finally found a $7.00 jar of Bon Maman rhubarb compote, which didn't look like much, but was only lightly sweetened.

Of course, nice strawberries were out of the question--I didn't even bother looking for those. I don't love cooked strawberries anyway, so I used frozen raspberries instead. I halved the sugar in the filling and doubled the rhubarb, making the filling a tart contrast to the sweet topping. The bits of candied ginger in the crisp part were a nice touch, but I did find the filling a bit gloopy from the cornstarch. I'll reduce that next time. I ate this for breakfast, dinner and dessert for the last week before my trip and I can't wait to get back home to my oven to make more!

Thanks so much to Sarah from Teapots and Cakestands for choosing this recipe. She'll have the recipe on her site. As always, you will find links to all the takes on this recipe at the TWD site.

Blueberry great grains muffins

These muffins were the perfect way to jump back into the routine of Tuesdays with Dorie. I can hardly believe I missed 5 weeks, but I am glad to be back. I am finally feeling better and I definitely have my sweet tooth back, and it's making up for lost time! These muffins were actually not too sweet, and didn't taste like cake masquerading as a muffin. That's a good thing, in my book. I like to keep breakfast and dessert somewhat separate. 

The recipe called for prunes, which I love, but only to snack on. There's something about rehydrated dried fruit that's weird. It's not dried, but it's still not fresh. Weird. So, I used fresh blueberries and some candied orange peel to flavour these. I also used more whole wheat flour and less white flour than the recipe called for, and these were not dense or tough at all. They definitely had texture, as I used a stoneground polenta and coarsely ground whole wheat flour. Oh, and I used some butter and some canola oil instead of all butter, because the butter was frozen. Everything is frozen here, actually. 

:)

The first muffin I ate plain, hot from the oven: delicious. The second I ate at room temperature with butter: delicious. The rest? I froze them before they disappeared too. Actually, I only baked 6, and froze the rest of the batter in my new muffin tin with a lid (finally!). So, I'll be able to pull that out and bake these fresh another day. I'll let you know how that turns out.

This week's recipe was selected by Christine at HappyTummy, so if you'd like to make these, head over there for the recipe. Thanks for a great pick, Christine--I'll be snacking on these for a while! As always, check out the LYL (leave your link) post on the Tuesdays with Dorie page to see who else made these, and how they changed them up.

TWD: Chocolate Oatmeal Almost Candy Bars

Raisins. Mushrooms. Green onions. Seaweed.
These are the foods I really don't like. There are more, but let's leave it at these 4 for now. This recipe called for raisins, but it also called for peanuts and cinnamon. I don't dislike peanuts and cinnamon, but they're not my favourites, either, so I left them out. What was I left with? Oatmeal, butter, brown sugar, chocolate, vanilla, salt and condensed milk. I can quite happily live with that. I replaced the chocolate chips with some dark, bittersweet chocolate, as other TWDers had commented on the powerful sweetness of these bars. Mine were not too sweet and I was quite happy with them. They taste like the oat fudge bars you can buy at Starbucks, except they're homemade. And that's a good thing.

This week's recipe was chosen by Lillian of Confectiona's Realm. Check out her blog for the recipe and also the TWD blogroll to see what everyone else has come up with.