Cakes & Bakes: Oat biscuits

Ahhh, tea and biscuits – one of life’s little pleasures… and an important one here at H is for Home headquarters!

And home-made biscuits, fresh from the oven, can take the enjoyment up a further notch or two. Justin requested a few for this week’s Cakes & Bakes offering, so I reached for this little tome from my cookery book collection. Favourite Biscuit Recipes offered up these lovely oat biscuits with soft brown sugar.

As with many home-made biscuits, recipe and method was pretty straightforward – and I knocked up this batch of 24 in less than an hour. The recipe says it makes 36 – however, my biscuit cutter is a tad larger than the 2 inch recommended.

They’re not fancy – just good, honest, rustic biscuits. I might reduce the bicarb of soda a touch when I next make them as I found the taste coming through a bit. However, they’re still delicious and should last us a few days… absolutely perfect with that aforementioned brew!

Click here or on the image below to save the oat biscuits recipe to Pinterest

Oat biscuits

2020-07-08 14:23:21

Yields 36

Cook Time

20 min

Cook Time

20 min

Ingredients

115g/4oz butter
115g/4oz brown sugar
170g/6oz rolled oats
170g/6oz flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tbsps milk

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Instructions

Set oven to 150ºC/300ºF/Gas mark 2
Grease/line baking sheets
Cream the butter and the sugar together in a bowl
Mix in ther oats and sift the flour and bicarbonate of soda together into the mixture and mix thoroughly
Add sufficient milk to form the mixture into a stiffish dough
Turn out on to a floured surface, roll out the dough thinly and cut into rounds with a 5cm/2-inch cutter
Put on to the greased baking sheets and bake for approximately 20 minutes or until golden brown
Transfer to a wire rack to cool

Adapted from Favourite Biscuit Recipes

H is for Home Harbinger https://hisforhomeblog.com/

Cakes & Bakes: Dried fruit oat cookies

Cookies are like buses; nothing for ages, then three come along one after the other!

We’ve been enjoying having a constant supply of home-made cookies so I decided to make use of a packet of dried raisins & cranberries that were languishing at the back of the food cupboard – way too healthy! They had to be made into some dried fruit oat cookies – a much tastier option to be demolished with an afternoon cup of tea!

Here’s my own recipe:

Dried fruit oat cookies

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Ingredients

170 g/6oz butter softened
150 g/5oz Demerara sugar
50 g/1¾ Muscovado sugar
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla essence
100 g/½ plain flour
¾ tsp bicarbonate of soda
225 g/8oz rolled oats
300 g/10½ mixed dried fruit (I used a 300g bag of Tesco Whole Foods raisin cranberry mix)

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 180ºC/350ºF/Gas mark 4 (a fraction lower if your oven is fan-assisted)
In a large mixing bowl (or food processor) cream the butter and sugars until well blended
Mix in the egg and vanilla essence
In a separate bowl, sift together the flour and bicarbonate of soda before combining with the previous mixture
Add the oats and dried fruit and mix thoroughly by hand
Form the mixture into balls (I made them the size of large marbles) using the palms of your hands
Put them on a large greased baking tray(s) and flatten each ball slightly with a fork
Bake for 10-12 minutes until golden brown
Cool on a wire rack before storing for up to a week in an airtight tin or jar

Cakes & Bakes: Oatmeal coconut cookies

I regularly bake cakes and loaves of bread but very rarely cookies. Maybe it’s because you can get such a wide range in the supermarket; or perhaps it’s because they can be fiddly to make. Anyway, I really fancied something different so I made a batch of these oatmeal coconut cookies.

THEY WERE ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS! Pah to supermarket-bought from now on!

I found the recipe in old favourite cookbook, Baking – Simple Cookery Series.

glass jar full of oatmeal coconut cookies, plate with two cookies and spotty mug of tea

Oatmeal Coconut Cokies

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Servings 40

Ingredients

225 g/8oz butter or margarine
125 g/4oz soft light brown sugar
125 g/4oz caster sugar
1 large egg lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla essence
225 g/8oz plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
125 g/4oz rolled oats
75 g/3oz desiccated coconut

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4, 10 minutes before baking. Lightly grease a baking sheet
Cream together the butter and sugars until light & fluffy
Gradually stir in the egg and vanilla essence and beat until well blended
In another bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda
Add to the butter & sugar mixture and beat together until smooth. Fold in the rolled oats and coconut with a metal spoon or rubber spatula (I found the mix too stiff for a rubber spatula)
Roll heaped teaspoonfuls of the mixture into balls and place on the prepared baking sheet about 5cm/2ins apart and flatten each ball slightly with the heel of the hand
Transfer to the preheated oven and bake for 12-15 minutes, until just golden
Remove from the oven and transfer the biscuits to a wire rack to completely cool

Despite being a greedy pair, we can't polish off 40 cookies in the 3 or 4 days that they remain fresh. I cooked half the batch and put the other post-flattened, pre-baked cookies in the freezer. I put them on a wire rack to freeze (they'd stick like glue to a baking sheet if used) then transferred them to a zip-lock freezer bag. To make the next batch just allow the cookies to defrost for about half an hour before baking as normal.