Oatcakes

Sometime in the past few weeks was National Cookie Day. I haven’t found anything to its history so far, but it seems like a good excuse to eat cookies, if you really think you still need excuses. (Our favorite excuse seems to be they go well with tea. Or, I wanted a cookie.) There is also a National Apple Turnover Day, Vanilla Cupcake Day and one or two others. If you really need excuses.

I celebrated (entirely by accident, but we can pretend I meant to do it) with oatcakes and tea. Oatcakes, despite the name, look a lot like cookies. And are quite delicious.

They are pretty simple, and tolerant of a little fudging. The photo in the book looked a little different, but I blame the light and my food processor. I don’t think I ground my oats quite as much as the photo would suggest, so the cookies were a little more irregular on the surface, but had nice oat bits every so often.

The original recipe uses a food processor for the whole mixing process (like pie crust!) My little food processor was not up to the task of making all the dough so I used it to grind the oats and then switched to the mixer. You could do the mixing by hand too if you wanted. The second time I made these I used half ground oats and half oat flour (which is basically just finely ground oats), just for fun and because I had some.

Ready to go.

The original recipe also uses light brown sugar, which might be why my cookies required less water than suggested the second time around - I didn't have any and instead of using half dark brown sugar and half granulated white sugar, I just used dark brown sugar. There was no real reason, it just didn't occur to  me at that time that traditionally one uses a mix of dark brown and white sugar to basically create light brown sugar until afterwards. That might be why in the end I only used about a ¾ cup of the water. However, looking through my photos, I discovered I DID use white and dark brown sugar on my first round of these (photo evidence - the only way I apparently remember having done anything), and still used less water (3/4 cup instead of 1 cup) than in the original recipe. It's a mystery we will have to solve one day. Could be the flour I used? Maybe the water temperature? I am not completely sure. Any more water and the dough would have gone from sticky to porridge.

Sticky

Also, don’t use boiling water. With an excess of enthusiasm, I did on my first try. Boiling water does indeed dissolve the baking soda, but it also melted the butter and turned the whole mixture into glue. I never got around to seeing if it could be turned into cookies, but I would not recommend it. Just use warm tap water, it should be fine.

...oops

Pour slowly so that you can stop in time if it turns out you do not need a whole cup of water. There will still be enough baking soda to produce decent results even if not all of it makes it to the dough. Or, if you prefer, just add the baking soda straight into the dry mixture. As far as I can tell, baking soda is dissolved in hot water to get rid of lumps, to distribute the baking soda more evenly in the dough, or to get a head start on the reaction, which doesn't start til 80°C (Obviously if you want that, make sure your water is hot enough).

The recipe does not specify how hot the hot water should be, so I don’t know if that is what they were going for, but given that the dough gets a rest in the fridge, it seems unlikely. What is interesting though is that at room temperature, no reaction will occur, so if you use water under 80°C, so you don’t have to rush the cookies to the oven. Which would make things more complicated, as the cookies are supposed to rest in the fridge for a while. Also, you might just melt the butter bits we spent all that time creating. Due to its molasses content, brown sugar is acidic, which is needed to activate the baking soda and produce that nice cookie texture that we want. Just thought I would share. I had never really thought about the pH of brown sugar before, or why we use baking soda in this recipe, so there we go. Now everyone knows!

Given how exciting I find all of this, perhaps I will go on at length about it some other time. It will be great. At least for me.

All mixed up and ready to go

The leftovers

The cookies taste a bit like oaty graham crackers. They are sweet but not very much so, so they go well with tea (but I say that about most food), or you could put things on them: my roommates like a teaspoon of nutella, or a bit of peanut butter. You could use them to scoop ice cream. Or frost them, I suppose. Drizzle with some powdered sugar glaze?

I have not tried adding spices to the recipe but I imagine a little cinnamon could be fun. A tablespoon of cocoa powder? A handful of toasted nuts thrown into the blender with the oats? Dried fruit, chocolate chips? So many possibilities...

So.

You will need:

2 cups oats (old fashioned or quick cooking doesn't really matter, they are going into the food processor anyway - if you want a perfectly smooth texture, try out oat flour)

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 cups brown sugar

½ cup butter (1 stick), cut into pieces

1 cup hot water (not boiling!) - you will probably only use about a 3/4 cup, that is fine

1 tsp baking soda

a pinch of salt

Grind the oats in the food processor.  Pour the ground oats in a large mixing bowl, together with the flours, sugar, and pinch of salt.  Stir once or twice, if you want. Add in your butter, cut into pieces, and using the paddle attachment of the mixer, let it mix at low to medium speed until the mixture is fairly crumbly. It could take a few minutes.

All the dry ingredients. The two cups of sugar are because this is a double batch.

Butter

Butter bits

More butter bits. Either level works, or somewhere in between.

Slightly smaller bits make a more even cookie.

I am not sure what no bits do, but it is probably a different creature altogether.

Mix your baking soda into the hot water, and while the mixer is turning, slowly pour in the water, until the mixture starts to stick together, then stop. Depending on your particular flour and sugar, it might want a bit more or less.

Looks about right.

At this point, stick the bowl in the fridge for a while. Or, scrape the dough out of the bowl, divide it in two, wrap each half in plastic and stick those in the fridge for a while. At least 30 minutes, but up to 4 hours, says the book. I may have forgotten my dough in the fridge overnight both times, and not really noticed a difference. On the second batch, I made half after a few hours of refrigeration and the rest the next day, I couldn't tell the difference once the cookies were all in a tin.

Doesn't mind spending the night here...

Once cold, roll the dough out fairly thin on a floured surface, jiggling the dough every so often so it doesn't get stuck to the table (use more flour if you have to), and then cut out whatever shapes you would like. Use a spatula or a scraper if you need it to lift the cookies off the table if they do get stuck. Roll up any leftover dough bits, chill them a while if they are too soft, then roll them out again til you run out of dough.

It's December, so everything is star-shaped!

Big stars!

Little stars!

Baking. The funny dent in the middle cookie was a large flake of butter once.

This can be hidden in a cookie-nutella sandwich.

Bake in a 325°F oven for about 12-18 minutes, depending on the size of your cookies and how brown you like them, until they are fairly crispy. Let them cool for a few minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack to finish cooling. You can leave them out overnight to dry out a little more, then transfer them to a cookie tin or your favorite airtight container. Or forget the container, get out your chocolate spread, and enjoy your breakfast.

Credit where it is due: I found this recipe in Home Baking: The artful mix of flour and tradition around the world, by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid. It's full of all sorts of nice stories and good recipes. Maybe one day I will tell you about their Chocolate-Flavored Cake, or as we know it, our favorite.

Have a nice December!



Here's the recipe without all the photos, if you want it:

Oatcakes:

2 cups oats (old fashioned or quick cooking doesn't really matter, they are going into the food processor anyway - if you want a perfectly smooth texture, try out oat flour)

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 cups brown sugar

½ cup butter (1 stick), cut into pieces

1 cup hot water (not boiling!) - you will probably only use about a 3/4 cup, that is fine

1 tsp baking soda

a pinch of salt

Grind the oats in the food processor.  Pour the ground oats in a large mixing bowl, together with the flours, sugar, and pinch of salt.  Stir once or twice, if you want. Add in your butter, cut into pieces, and using the paddle attachment of the mixer, let it mix at low to medium speed until the mixture is fairly crumbly. It could take a few minutes.

Mix your baking soda into the hot water, and while the mixer is turning, slowly pour in the water, until the mixture starts to stick together, then stop. Depending on your particular flour and sugar, it might want a bit more or less.

At this point, stick the bowl in the fridge for a while. Or, scrape the dough out of the bowl, divide it in two, wrap each half in plastic and stick those in the fridge for a while. At least 30 minutes, but up to 4 hours, or even overnight.

Once cold, roll the dough out fairly thin on a floured surface, jiggling the dough every so often so it doesn't get stuck to the table (use more flour if you have to), and then cut out whatever shapes you would like. Use a spatula or a scraper if you need it to lift the cookies off the table if they do get stuck. Roll up any leftover dough bits, chill them a while if they are too soft, then roll them out again til you run out of dough.

Bake in a 325°F oven for about 12-18 minutes, depending on the size of your cookies and how brown you like them, until they are fairly crispy. Let them cool for a few minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack to finish cooling. You can leave them out overnight to dry out a little more, then transfer them to a cookie tin or your favorite airtight container. Or forget the container, get out your chocolate spread, and enjoy your breakfast.