Olive Oil Oatcakes or, Four Fleeting Months

September 27, 2011. I could have sworn I had been here more recently than that. But, no. Aside from swooping in from time to time and deleting spam and checking to see if anyone had commented on any ancient posts, I have been gone. 

I was around for a spell, setting up a still dark, still unfinished crafty page. It has promise. Autumn was full of craftiness - lots of sewing and gluing and feeling very homemade. There was not very much cooking, not much to write about. The adjustment to my daughter’s new school and extra-curricular life kicked me in the gut. That, and trying to be serious about shifting the extra twenty pounds that has been hanging around for nearly six years meant that cooking anything that wasn’t child-friendly or low in calories, carbohydrates, fat and sugar was clearly not a priority. 

I also discovered Downton Abbey. I know it really is no excuse as it only accounts for a few too short hours of the last four months (Yep, four months, I know). It is, however, very hard to not stand watching, wondering whether an extra or secret episode has unexpectedly downloaded in the twenty-six minutes since I last checked. It’s become a little consuming.

Selflessly though, here I am. Back, with something healthy and cupboard friendly and good for you and your offspring to eat without feeling like you have broken the calorie bank. I have made these oatcakes at least half a dozen times during my hiatus, each time a little different with various additions and subtractions. I have got it down though and after some alterations felt at liberty to share with you my take on an already great recipe.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, the master of all things head to tail and local and ethical and sustainable and well, you know where I am going, writes a column for The Guardian. In it, he talks of all manner of foodly things from pig's cheeks to sumac to steamed pudding to picnics. I appreciate what he does. I adapted one of those recipes from an article on biscuits to suit not only the tastes of my children but our pantry contents as well.

I spent time grinding rolled oats and pinhead oats and steel cut oats and trying to get the texture just right before I even tried it with just plain old rolled oats, unground, as they come. Turns out, I could have saved a lot of time and good, but not excellent, batches of these little cheese, jam, chutney, salmon, ham and anything else you could think to put on a cracker holders. Plain old rolled oats is the way forward as far as I am are concerned. The finished texture may rival some of the finest Scottish offerings and it was by far the easiest batch to deal with in the prep.

The original recipe suggests letting the dough rest for as long as it takes to open a bottle of wine and pour yourself a glass. I can assure you that if it rests for as long as it takes to drink that glass of wine it will not result in culinary ruin. You may have to add a touch more water and give it a slightly longer bake but it will be just as good, and maybe even a little crunchier.

As well as changing the oats, I may have added a touch more water than what Hugh recommends. He says sunflower seeds, I say use whatever takes your fancy, or you have in your cupboard. I have used nigella seeds, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, a mix of seeds and nothing. All have turned out just fine. The nigella are the prettiest and the plain ones are the most perfect oaty toastiness.

Olive Oil Oatcakes (adapted from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Bill Rona’s Oatcakes recipe)

280 grams rolled oats

Cracked black pepper (Hugh recommends 10 twists, I think you can take it or leave it)

1/2 teaspoon salt

A small handful of seeds

75 ml extra virgin olive oil

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Dust two baking sheets with flour. Boil the kettle.

Mix the dry ingredients. Stir in the olive oil. Make a well in the centre of the mixture. Add just enough boiling water to bring the dough together. You want the dough to be firm, not sticky.

Form the dough into a ball and allow to rest for a few minutes.

Roll out the dough on a floured surface to about 3mm thick. Cut into rounds, you will need to use a fairly sharp cutter, or using a sharp knife, cut into squares.

Place on baking sheets and bake for twenty minutes. Remove from the oven, turn oatcakes over and bake a further 5-10 minutes.

Remove from oven and cool.

Yield will depend on cutter size and shape but expect about 3 dozen 1 3/4-inch round biscuits.

Healthy??? Chocolate Chip Cookies

Okay, so a recipe for a healthy chocolate chip cookie isn’t something I would usually leap at with great enthusiasm. I imagine heavy, doorstopper like pucks with the texture of slightly moistened saw dust and tasting pretty much like not sweet enough cardboard.

I know that sugar alternatives have come a long way since back in the day when my mother read Sugar Blues and virtually banned the stuff from a good part of our childhood but those memories still sting. And, I was preparing for this trip to the Caribbean and the thought of exposing more flesh than what is on show wearing jeans and a rain coat was weighing heavily when I came across this one. 

Like the veggie burgers, it comes from The Golden Door Cooks at Home by Dean Rucker and Marah Stets.

I don’t usually find a lot of inspiration in vegan baking. I believe in butter. That isn’t to say that I think vegans are in any way misguided. On the contrary, I admire them and believe it is an amazing thing to commit to. But, there are times when animal products seem to belong in cooking and, more often than not, baking is one of them. On the other hand, I also think it is important to get outside of one’s sweet and buttery comfort zone every now and then.

By now, I probably don’t need to tell you that I was a little skeptical but it had been about ten days since my last sweet and I was pretty sure that these would be a justifiable caloric splurge. I had even stayed away from the dark chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, also known in our house as God’s gift to cake, that I had made for my sister’s birthday. More admirably, I had managed to stay away from the leftover frosting in the fridge.

While we were making these, I read the recipe to Poppy and was explaining what we had to do. I stopped in the midst of collecting ingredients to rescue Tilly, who was tangled up in some chair legs and, because I often have the attention span of a gnat these days, I was distracted. A few minuted later, I was reminded of the job underway by Poppy saying, 'Hurry up, we have to mill some oats now.' I decided we would be making these again just to mill oats in the food processor.

These cookies were good. There was no sawdustiness. The texture was a little crispy and a little chewy which isn’t a bad thing in a cookie. They were nicely sweet.  I will admit to adding 3 times the amount of chocolate chips called for because I don’t think you can call cookies chocolate chip cookies if you have to search for the chocolate chips. Does that make them less healthy? Yeah, it probably does. 

The cookies didn’t make it to Poppy’s preschool, the intended destination, because the recipe only made eighteen in the end. Maybe we made them too big but they weren’t huge. Maybe, because the recipe comes from a health spa, they are supposed to be really small. But, by the time we had tasted a couple to be sure they were good, there weren’t enough to go around so we had to eat them ourselves, except for the ones that went to some friends’ house for dinner.

I probably ate four of them and I enjoyed them completely but, with each one, I couldn’t help thinking that, with a little leftover cream cheese frosting, they would make pretty amazing whoopie pies. I thought about it and I thought about it some more and then I had another little think about it but I didn’t do it. I swear.

I am going to make these again sometime, when I don’t have leftover cream cheesy distractions around to cloud my judgement because they were good and if stepping outside the buttery baking box turned out this well all the time, it might be a lot easier to feel good in my bathing suit.

The only change I made, other than the quantity of chocolate chips, was to use grapeseed oil instead of vegetable oil spray. Just use a piece of paper towel to spread a thin film of oil over the parchment.

Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies from The Golden Door Cooks at Home by Dean Rucker and Marah Stets

Grapeseed oil

1/2 cup old fashioned rolled oats

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup chocolate chips

1 tablespoon ground flaxseed

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup maple syrup

1/2 cup applesauce

3 tablespoons grapeseed oil

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350º. Line two baking sheets with parchment and, using a piece of paper towel, cover the parchment with a very thin film of grapeseed oil.

In a food processor, pulse the oats to a fine meal. It should take about ten minutes. Transfer the oats to a large mixing bowl and add the rest of the dry ingredients.

Whisk together the wet ingredients and add to the dry. Use a spatula to fold them together until just incorporated.

The batter will be the consistency of muffin batter.

Spoon rounded tablespoonfuls onto the baking sheet, 11/2 “ apart. Use the back of a wet spoon to flatten each cookie out a bit.

Bake one sheet at a time for about 20 minutes, until light golden brown.

Transfer to cooling rack.

These won’t keep for too long but it didn’t seem to be a problem here.

Nerves and Down Under Cookies - Mucked Up

I love being in the kitchen. I love cooking. I find it so hard to let go and not be in the kitchen when there is cooking to be done. So hard that I made dinner, of sorts, for Poppy and Stephen twelve hours after Tilly was born. Sure, it was just a bowl of pasta with some tomato sauce I had made in a hormonally charged fit of nesting a couple of days before but I still couldn't just sit back and let Stephen do it.

I love it when someone else cooks. It doesn't happen very often. And, even then, I feel awkward and anxious when there is nothing to help with in the kitchen. I have certainly never sat on our window seat and watched someone else cook.

So, I worry what will happen over the next month as I try to stay clear of the galley and let the very capable chef, who cooks for my husband all the time, cook for me and the girls. Will I be beside myself with nervousness or will I relax and enjoy it for the break it is?

I have lots of things planned for here while I am away. I have a few food posts squirrelled away and a favourite stuff page and other things I read page in the works. I am also going to try to read Heston Blumenthal's In Search of Perfection more than two pages at a time.

And, maybe I'll have some amazing food experiences to share, who knows.

+++

In the meantime, I have done it. I have mucked about with the much revered ANZAC cookie recipe. I will no longer refer to it as an ANZAC cookie in its mucked up form, because it quite clearly isn't. There may even be a law in Australia and New Zealand about mucking about with it. So, from now on, it will just be a recipe for Darn Good Oatmeal Coconut Cookies With Anything I Choose to Throw in.

The first, and so far only go, I had involves walnuts and raisins. They are just as good but a little nuttier and I love the taste of just starting to caramelize raisins. Very, very nice on a rainy afternoon with a hot cup of tea.

I used a little less coconut than I did in the original and I found that they needed a couple minutes longer in the oven than the plain ones but that may just be due to my thermometerless gas oven.

Darn Good Oatmeal Cookies With Walnuts and Raisins

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup rolled oats (I used old fashioned)

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup unsweetened coconut 

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

125 grams (1/2 cup) butter

3 tablespoons golden syrup

2 tablespoons water 

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat oven to 350º.

Mix flour, oats, sugar, coconut, raisins and walnuts in a large bowl.

In a saucepan, bring butter, golden syrup and water to the boil. Add the baking soda and   then mix into the dry ingredients.

Roll into walnut sized balls and place on parchment lined baking sheets. Flatten the balls with the back of a spatula.

Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Down Under Cookies - unmucked

In a slight flap the other morning, I realized two things. The first was that the internet is a pain in the ass when you are in a rush to find a recipe and that I have no family cookbooks. The latter necessitated the search of the former. We were busy, it was the morning, I had no idea how many moms and babes were due to arrive shortly and I said I was going to have some snacks.

I wanted to make muffins but could I find the notebook where I have all of those recipes? Not likely with baby in one arm and stirring porridge with the other hand. Turns out it was buried somewhere between some water paints and the crayon tin, stuck to a Rosie Flo colouring book with some Hello Kitty stickers. 

I went to the bookshelf looking for inspiration there. Turns out that Thomas, Charlie and Gordon don’t have recipes for Everything but the Kitchen Sink Muffins. I turned to the computer in the hopes that someone else out there employed my method of packing as much veg into a muffin as its little paper case will hold. Nope, not so, it seems. In less of a flap, I may have been able to think of googling something other than Everything but the Kitchen Sink in a tasty cake but I had two hungry girls and hadn’t had a cup of tea.

Somehow in the mayhem, I stumbled upon an ANZAC cookie recipe and bliss, just what was needed.

I have only made ANZAC cookies once or twice but, as one of the moms pointed out, we were only a few days from ANZAC Day. How timely. It is also pretty hard to pack them full of grated zucchini and carrots but they taste so darn yummy, who cares? I resisted the urge to muck about with the recipe on such short notice despite the walnuts and apricots that were crying out to be chopped up and chucked in, the raisins that were sulking in the cupboard, left behind and the leftover Easter eggs that were screaming out to lend some chocolatey richness. Cover your ears all you Aussies and Kiwis right now because I am going to muck about with the recipe, just as soon as I have twenty  minutes to think about it. 

I had to chase my daughter who, out of the corner of my eye, I saw snitch the butter off the counter and hightail it into a corner of the living room. Her panicked fingers desperately trying to get it unwrapped before I found her. She, like her father, is all about the butter and left to it would happily eat it with a spoon. I caught her, and tied her up with a skipping rope calmy suggested she should find something more constructive to do so I could get the bloody cookies made.

I made the cookies again a day later, still without mucking about, after some further online looking around. It turns out that the ratio of flour to oats to sugar to golden syrup to butter doesn’t really vary. The only thing that seems to change is whether you use white sugar or brown and how much coconut you use.There are thousands of recipes out there and my search was by no means exhaustive and I wanted to be sure. I turned to Lynda, who makes some darn tasty ANZAC cookies at our local cookie, coffee, general yumminess cafe, to see whether she does anything crazy different because her ANZACs are perfect and as big as Poppy’s head. It turns out that she uses pretty much spot on what I used, but a little more water and a little less coconut. Her cookies are neater and I expect that comes from the extra tablespoon of water. Or, maybe it is from not having to fight a spoon-wielding Poppy off the baking sheet of raw cookies. Until I make these some more, I won’t be able to tell for sure.

The recipe I used came from here. I added an extra tablespoon of golden syrup and an extra half cup of coconut both times I made them. I also flattened the cookies out a bit before baking. I will add an extra tablespoon of water next time. And, sorry purists, I will probably add some other stuff, just to try it out. But first, I need to get some more golden syrup.

ANZAC Cookies (2 dozen)

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup rolled oats (I used old fashioned)

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup unsweetened coconut 

125 grams (1/2 cup) butter

3 tablespoons golden syrup

1 tablespoon water (I am going to make this 2 tablespoons next time)

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat oven to 350º.

Mix flour, oats, sugar and coconut in a large bowl.

In a saucepan, bring butter, golden syrup and water to the boil. Add the baking soda and   then mix into the dry ingredients.

Roll into walnut sized balls and place on parchment lined baking sheets. Flatten the balls with the back of a spatula.

Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Try to have some left the next day.