Honey and oats sandwich loaf

I can't believe it's hump day already! Halfway to the weekend. The weeks just fly away, it was barely spring and now it's less than 100 days to Christmas. But rather than thinking of dark mornings and evenings ahead, let's think about happy things. Like carbs!

This recipe is adapted from the Brown Eyed Baker blog, as it was one of the first hits that came up when I googled "sandwich bread recipe oats" and I thought it looked and sounded very delicious. I saw a very special sandwich on a cooking program on telly the other day, and am dying to try it but we didn't have any bread in the house so instead of buying some substandard British supermarket bread I just thought I would make some myself.

I always convince myself baking bread is a huge hassle, so I don't do it nearly often enough. But I started this dough after getting out of bed on a Saturday morning (around 8ish), and it was out of the oven by 11.30 am, so after giving it a bit of time to cool I will have super fresh bread for our lunch sandwiches.

This is a very simple dough to throw together from ingredients you are most likely to have at home at any time (possible minus the honey, depending on if you are a big honey fan or not. I have some old honey that has started to crystallise a bit, so this recipe was a perfect way to use it up before it became completely unusable). The original recipe uses traditional oats, not the quick cook ones, and there were comments on the site saying the dough was too soggy if using quick cook oats, but I didn't have a problem, hopefully this will work for other people as well. If you use traditional oats, have a look at the original recipe, as you are supposed to soak them in boiling hot water first and then letting the mixture cool before proceeding. I made my bread exactly as described below without problems. 

Honey and oats sandwich bread (makes 1 loaf):
1 cup warm water 
1/4 cup warm milk
2 tsp instant (easy bake) yeast
1/4 cup honey
1 cup quick cook oats
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp butter (cut into small pieces)
1 cup strong whole wheat flour
1 2/3 cup strong white flour

Ready for the oven

The howto:
Mix the warm water, milk, yeast, oats and honey in a bowl, and leave for a few minutes. Add the butter and salt and mix. Add flour and turn onto a table and knead until a soft dough forms (this can be done by hand or using a machine. As I don't have any other options, I did it by hand. The dough is a bit soft, but after kneading this brioche bun dough, this dough was easy peasy). Leave to proof for about an hour, or until dough has doubled in size. 

If using a regular bread loaf pan (9x5 in), butter it. I used my trusty silicon loaf pan, which needs no prep, I love it as it's one more step that can be omitted, making things just that little bit easier. After the dough has proved, oil your hands, and knock the air out of the dough by kneading it a few times. At this point the dough seemed really well behaved, it didn't stick and was easy to handle. Shape the dough into a log by smoothing it out to a rectangle and make a roll, tucking the ends under and rolling a few times on the table to ensure its even. There are some pictures of the process on the Browned Eyed Baker blog here if you aren't sure how to do it. Pop the loaf into the tin, and leave to proof for another hour to hour and a half (my loaf was climbing well over the edges of the loaf pan after an hour). At the end of the proofing, preheat oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F). Bake for 45 minutes, and protect with foil if bread starts to brown too heavily. I added 10 minutes to the baking time as the bread still felt a bit wobbly after 45 minutes. Also, it didn't become nearly as dark as the bread in the original blog post, not sure why but it turned out great nonetheless.

The verdict:
This was a very easy bread to put together and it had great rise. It was really hard to wait until it had cooled completely before sampling it. But I do urge you to wait, as the bread is really difficult to cut while the loaf is still warm (don't ask me why I know). This bread is quite sweet from the honey, so beware if you don't like sweet breads. For me it was perfect, as I do like a bit of sweetness, and it goes great with the light nuttiness of the oats. I also like that it's very soft and fluffy, not at all dense. I think it would be perfect for toasting and serving with butter and jam. I'm not sure it would be the best for sandwiches as it seems quite soft, and quite hard to cut into really thin slices. Given how little work it is to make, this is a really great, tasty and lightly textured bread which baked perfect the first time I tried it although I did make some alterations to the original recipe.

Vanilla glazed rhubarb oatmeal scones

I usually begin my weekend morning by browsing all the blogs I follow. The other week, I stumbled upon a yummy looking Rhubarb Roly Poly recipe from The English Kitchen. Although I had promised myself I wouldn't bake anything that weekend, the recipe got me thinking of the first stalks of rhubarb out there in the garden. However, I felt I didn't want to wait for dessert but wanted something immediately, so I googled rhubarb scones and came across this delicious sounding recipe for Vanilla glazed rhubarb oatmeal scones on the Kitchen Daily blog. I took a liking to the recipe as you can almost convince yourself they are a healthy sort of treat with the oatmeal and whole wheat flour. Well, at least I can, as I'm very good at self deception. So there I was, on a Sunday morning with fresh warm scones by 8.30 in the morning. Good thing our garden faces out to fields. Our neighbours would have thought I was stark raving mad if they had seen me out there in the garden in my pink monkey robe and knife in hand, bending down over the rhubarb plant at 7.30 in the morning. But when a craving hits, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. 

I have used the recipe almost unaltered, although I did halve it as 16 fresh scones in my kitchen on a Sunday morning didn't seem like the safest of prospects.

Vanilla glazed rhubarb oatmeal scones (makes 8, recipe from the Kitchen Daily blog):
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup oats (not the quick cooking type)
1 tbsp baking powder
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
170 g butter, cubed
1/4 cup buttermilk (I made my own by adding a splash of vinegar into regular milk)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 cup chopped rhubarb
1 egg for egg wash and caster sugar for sprinkling on top

Glaze:
1/2 cup icing sugar
2 1/2 tbsp milk
1/4 tsp vanilla paste

The howto:
Preheat oven to 200 degrees C (400 degrees F). Mix the flour, oats, baking powder, sugar and salt in a bow. Add the cubed cold butter and using your fingers, crumble everything together until the texture of coarse sand. In another bowl, mix the buttermilk, vanilla and egg, and add to the flour and butter mixture. Mix just enough to bring the dough together. Add the rhubarb. Pat the dough to form a rectangle about 1 inch (2.5 cm) thick. Cut into eight pieces (first into four pieces once length- and once widthwise and then across the diagonals so you get eight triangles). Place triangles on a parchment paper lined baking sheet, and brush with egg. Sprinkle caster sugar on top. Bake for 20-22 minutes until baked and golden brown. Let cool for a few minutes on a wire rack.

While the scones are cooling, mix together the ingredients for the glaze and drizzle onto the scones. You can adjust the proportion of icing sugar to milk depending on how thick you like your glaze. Serve while still warm with a cup of tea or coffee. 

The verdict:
These scones were a perfect treat for a Sunday morning as well as a perfect way to enjoy the first crop of rhubarb this spring. The rhubarb stalks were still thin and tender and really tangy. The scones were wonderfully crumbly inside with a crisp crust formed by the sugar and egg wash. The combination of the sweet vanilla glaze and sour rhubarb was perfect. Also, the oats and whole wheat flour give them a rougher texture than regular scones, along with loads more flavour. Not a completely innocent treat with all that butter, but a great way to treat yourself on a lazy weekend morning.

Happy Blog Birthday!!!

It is exactly one year ago since I wrote my first blog post. I had planned to celebrate by baking a really impressive 1st birthday cake. However, life got in the way and I'm having quite a stressful week and I just can't motivate myself to do anything outside of the things I need to do in real life. And yes, real life doesn't include anything fun like cooking, blogging or card making... The only thing I could manage was to whip up a batch of these super easy oatmeal, raisin and fudge cookies. You might (or might not) remember my previous disastrous attempt with oatmeal and raisin cookies. This time, I used Ina Garten's recipe hoping the resulting product could be identified as cookies and not a baking sheet sized blob of cooked cookie dough. I only made a minor adjustment to the recipe as I didn't use pecans, and didn't have quite enough raisins so I substituted some fudge chunks. 

I would love to add some musings about the past year, but I can't stretch myself to write anything that's not work related. So unfortunately (or maybe fortunately for you...) I will jump on straight to the recipe. Hopefully my life situation will sort itself out soonish, and I will have time and energy to annoy you with my endless stories again. Until then, I leave you with these wonderful cookies, only slightly modified from the Barefoot Contessa's recipe on the food network. I only made half the recipe so the measures below are half of the original recipe. (Also it's close to midnight and I want to publish the post on the right day!!)

Raisin, oatmeal and fudge chunk birthday cookies (makes about 15):
115 g butter (original recipe says unsalted but I only had salted butter)
1/2 cup (1.25 dl) light brown muscovado sugar
1/2 cup (1.25 dl) caster sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup (1.9 dl) all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt (I omitted this because I used salted butter)
1.5 cups (3.75 dl) oats (the old fashioned kind, not quick cook oats)
1/2 cup (1.25 dl) raisins
1/4 cup (0.6 dl) small fudge chunks

The howto:
Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F). Using an electric whisk (or electric mixer if you have one, you lucky lucky you) beat together the room temperature butter, muscovado sugar and caster sugar until fluffy and white. Continue to beat in the egg and the vanilla extract. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and cinnamon (and salt). Add to the buttery mix, and only mix enough to incorporate the flour, but don't over mix. Fold in the oats, raisins and fudge chunks.

Scoop a total of about 15 mounds of dough onto parchment paper lined baking pans. Leave enough room between cookies to let them expand, I used two baking sheets for my 15 cookies. Bake for 12-15 minutes until lightly browned. Let cool on a rack.

The verdict:
I'm so happy I had better cookie karma this time around. The cookies turned out looking exactly as they should. And more importantly, they tasted really good. I might omit the cinnamon next time though. But the cookies had a lovely texture, they were soft in the centre but had a bit of crisp around the edges. I baked the first batch maybe a minute too much, but the second batch turned out perfect. Oats give the cookies such a wonderful texture, and I used extra jumbo raisins as I love to bite into one of those juicy little gems. This recipe is definitely a keeper!

Card of the day:
Obviously today's card had to be a birthday card. I made this using three single stamps from the HobbyCraft Mini Clear Stamp range (Monkey, Lion and Giraffe). I stamped using HobbyCraft black pigment ink and embossed using Ranger Super Fine Detail Clear embossing powder. I used Tim Holtz distress inks as watercolours to colour the animals (you rub off a bit of ink from the pad onto baking parchment (or a craft mat) and then use a wet watercolour brush and water for blending to colour). I used foam to apply Distress inks around the edges (it's a while since I made the card, but my guess would be I used broken china, peeled paint, wild honey, milled lavender and spun sugar). I cut small banners from card scraps and stamped the sentiment from the HobbyCraft Clear Stamps General Sentiments 21 pk using the same black ink as before. I matted the picture onto black card and snailed it all onto C6 Kraft card from Craft UK Limited. I think it turned out to be very appropriate for a first birthday.

Lo-Lo cookies

This is my kind of math!

Lo-Lo, or Love Lotus! I read the joyous news on The English Kitchen. The thing known as Biscoff spread, Speculoos spread or Lotus spread is finally available in the UK. When I first started food blogging about a year ago, the US food blogs were ablaze with Biscoff recipes. Biscoff cake, Biscoff cookies, Biscoff ice cream, Biscoff macaroons, Biscoff buns, you name it, they had a recipe for it. I had no idea what this Biscoff thing was, and it seemed to be impossible to get hold of it even on Amazon. So I gave up on Biscoff, telling myself it probably wasn't that good anyways. However, last fall I had to fly to San Francisco for work, and I finally had my chance to get some Biscoff spread. There were quite a bit of other things I also needed to fit into my suitcase, so I only brought one jar of Biscoff with me. 

For a while, the jar was just sitting there on the shelf, as I wasn't sure which of the hundreds of Biscoff recipes I should use it for. So I decided, maybe I'll just taste it, just a little bit, to see what it's like. Maybe that would help. So I dipped in my spoon, and had a lick. Oh my god! My taste buds had an orgasm. So I scooped a bit more into my mouth. And a bit more. What the heck, half a jar would be enough for baking, so I just kept spooning the spread into my mouth. Then I quickly closed the lid and put the jar back in the fridge. Only to be back in a few minutes for another taste. I pushed the jar all the way to the back of the fridge. Over the next few days, I had a spoonful here and there, thinking I could still bake something from the last quarter of a jar. However, very soon there was only a sad little spoonful left at the bottom of the jar. So I took pity on that little leftover dollop, and ate it too. And, as I had no upcoming trips across the pond, I thought that was the end of my very short, but ever so passionate love story with Biscoff. 

That is until a few weeks ago, when I read Marie's post. Lotus spread is available at Waitrose. I did a little happy dance! I live a bit away from the nearest Waitrose. Last Friday, I decided not to get my regular bus home from work, but to get on the bus which would drop me off right next to Waitrose. And I marched in there, and got me two jars of the heavenly goo. And happily walked the 45 minute walk home, thinking of all the amazing things I would bake with my little treasures. However, as soon as I got home, it looked like the jars would suffer a similar fate to my first ever Biscoff. Luckily today, when I was browsing the food blogs I follow, and had a look at this lovely Gooey Butter Cake from Brown Eyed Baker. The little section featuring the "Today a year ago" recipe was for no-bake Biscoff cookies.  And obviously, I couldn't resist. I thought maybe I'll make them in the weekend? But then again, why wait. I was going to clean my apartment today, and finally wash the piles of dishes that someone keeps leaving all around. Filthy little bugger... But no, instead I decided to make a batch of cookies. And after I tasted them, I realised I have to immediately share this little gem with you. 

So if you have never stumbled upon this amazing product, what you need to know is that is a spread made out of cookies. It might sound a bit weird, it sure did to me, but don't knock it until you try it. Biscoff is often compared to peanut butter. Why, I have no idea, as it has nothing to do with peanuts. The texture is pretty close, I guess that's why. Other than that, it's made of Lotus cookies, a cinnamon spicy type of cookie, which apparently is often served on airplanes. The recipe for the no-bake cookies is by Brown Eyed Baker, but it was featured as a guest post on Sugarcrafter. I used it without any modification, except I halved the recipe, because somehow eating half a batch of cookies doesn't sound quite as horrible as eating a whole batch of cookies. Tomorrow, I'm going running. Pinky swear.

No bake Biscoff/Lotus/Speculoos cookies from Sugarcrafter/Brown Eyed Baker (makes about 10 cookies):
3/4 cups caster sugar
1/4 cup milk
56 g (1/4 cup) butter
a pinch of salt
1/3 cup Lotus spread
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup oats

The howto:
Measure the sugar, milk, butter and salt in a pan, bring to a boil, and let boil for one minute. Take the pan off the heat, and add the spread and vanilla. Fold in the oats. Dollop onto parchment paper or a silicone mat to form cookies the size you like. I spooned the dough into cookie cutters to make shapes out of my cookies. Let cool until set, for the impatient cookie monsters out there, this can be expedited by placing the cookies in the fridge. 

The verdict:
Ooh my!! These no bake cookies are super decadent. The sugar-butter-milk mixture together with the spread combines perfectly into a fudge like matrix which hold the chewy oats in place. The spicy flavour of the Lotus spread comes through very well (and ever better once the cookies have cooled completely, a state which only about half of my cookies managed to achieve...). The super rich sweetness is held in check by the dry and chevy oats. These cookies are not only ridiculously good, they are also really quick to prepare, and perfect for that late night sugar craving.

Baked autumn apple oatmeal

Last week, instead of going to the grocery shop, I ordered delivery. That's one of the things I consider an absolute luxury in this country, ordering groceries to your front door and only paying a few quid for it. Obviously the delivery price varies depending on your time slot. Fortunately the cheapest ones are the ones late in the evening, which is the only time I am at home anyways. So delivered groceries always mean too much groceries. As I don't have a car, weekly grocery shopping for me literally means some heavy lifting. So when I'm ordering online, I tend to pile on anything stockable. Beans, chickpeas, tinned tomatoes, flour... If it keeps, I will order it.

Sometime (ok, ok, every time...) I go a bit overboard with my grocery delivery orders, just out of the joy of not having to carry it all home myself. Currently my kitchen is stocked with several kilograms of flour, several kilograms of chopped tomatoes, half a dozen packs of chickpeas. And right now, also at least three weeks worth of eggs. I mistakenly ordered two 15 egg cartons, when I was going to buy two 10 egg cartons. So right now I'm trying to come up with lots of recipes which require eggs. For some strange reason I only come up with super-unhealthy foods... Pasta carbonara, meringues, custard, lemon curd, macarons. I also managed to completely overdo the fruit order this week. A big bag of pears, apples, bananas and two big bags of satsumas. The bananas are no problem, I will ignore them until they are over-ripe, at which point there is only one alternative left - banana bread! But the apples and pears... They will keep for a while, but I'm trying to use them up as much as possible. I would love to bake something and pop it in the freezer, but my tiny little freezer is packed to the brim with salmon and chicken from said grocery delivery. And my slow cooker is loaded with mustard and chilli flavoured pork loin with pineapple, vinegar and onions. It will be slowly bubbling away all night, which means that when I wake up in the middle of the night to my inevitable leg cramps, I will also have to fight the urge to pick up a fork and just start chewing away on that lovely smelling porky pork.

And off I went on a tangent again. Back to the apples and pears. I've been working hard trying to get rid of them, I made a wonderful apple and pear crumble for two and some pear and chocolate scones. But there was still more. And I have been wanting to make baked oatmeal for quite a while, ever since the almighty Pinterest threw this recipe at me. It's a recipe for almond and blueberry baked oatmeal and it's from a blog called Healthy Food for Living. I don't like almonds, and I don't have blueberries, but I do love the idea of baked oatmeal. It's almost like a healthified version of my earlier crumble. And I got another chance to use my lovely pink single serving ramekins, which I love love love.

Baked apple oatmeal (serves 2):
50 g porridge oats
1 cup milk of choice (I used skimmed, although I guess almond or rice milk would also work)
1 egg
2 tbsp maple syrup (can be halved or omitted if you want to be super healthy)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 apple

The howto:
Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. Mix oats, milk, egg, maple syrup and spices. Chop the apple into small cubes and add to the oatmeal. Divide into two single serving ramekins and bake for about 20 minutes.

The verdict:
I try not to eat oatmeal too often, as I'm trying to minimise the amount of grain in my diet. But I absolutely adore all forms of porridge. I love rice porridge, semolina porridge and oat porridge. And this is definitely pimped up oat porridge. Baking it in the oven, and adding egg really gives it a wonderful texture. Also, this is much easier to make in the morning, as regular oatmeal needs stirring while it's cooking (unless you use those pouches of microwavable oatmeal, with all that added sugar and whatnot) but this just needs a quick whisk and can be left in the oven while doing whatever it is you do in the mornings.

The spices and maple syrup gives the oatmeal a wonderful flavour that complements the apples really well. And the apple goes lovely and soft, but still retains a bit of chewiness giving the dish a wonderful texture together with the soft oats. I will definitely be making this specific oatmeal again, and also develop other flavour combinations. Blueberry, strawberry, pear, possibly even banana (although I'm slightly suspicious about banana, but will probably try it at some point). Maybe banana and almond butter? I think berries probably release enough liquid to justify decreasing the amount of milk a bit to make sure the oatmeal it doesn't get soggy. Next week I'll probably do an pear and vanilla variation. Oh and maybe at some point do a weekend version with chocolate chips. There we go, chocolate is back in my thoughts. But I'm quite proud of myself, I think I made it through several posts without a single mention of chocolate. Could I be starting to heal from my chocoholism? Meeeh... not going to happen. Ever!

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The cookies that snuck up on me

I just can't help it, I seem to be attracting recipes for all sorts of baked goodies. Take today as an example. I had no plans to bake at all, after all it's Monday, and it's yet again another week when I should avoid any and all goodies. I was heading for an appointment with my physio (the neck is still being a bit of a pain in the... well neck). Being a bit early, as I usually am, I decided to pop into a lovely cafe called Bill's which is conveniently located on the way. I was craving some sort of hot beverage as the weather was once again very UK-ish and miserable. So I got in, ordered a hot chocolate with my barely there voice (I always lose my voice when I'm coming down with the flu) and sat down in one of those deep leather chairs you sink into and never want to get out of. There was a huge bookshelf covering the whole wall, and I was almost getting out of my seat to find a book to browse while I was enjoying my hot chocolate when I discovered there was actually a book on the table in front of me. It had a white and red checkered pattern on the cover that immediately made me think of a cookbook, so I excitedly reached for it. Not only was it indeed a cookbook, it was a cookie cook book called Milk and Cookies by Tina Casaceli. You can have a look at the first few recipes of the book on Amazon if you follow my link. Anyways, my point was, I seem to be attracting cookbooks and recipes even when I'm trying to be good and stay away. And of course this had to be a sign from above, so I had to try one of the recipes in the book. I love my iPhone, it's so handy to always have a camera with you, so I snapped a photo of the recipe for the oatmeal cookie dough. Weirdly enough I got a craving for raisin and oatmeal cookies, not chocolate ones. I'm afraid that lack of chocolate craving might be proof that I'm sick with something really dangerous and incurable.

I'd like to call these self deception cookies, as you could almost imagine that they are a bit healty as there is no chocolate in them. And raisins are basically dried fruit, and fruit is good for you. And oats are practically health food. So I justified to myself that it's perfectly all right to bake these although in theory I'm on a strict diet. Well, let's just say I have once again stretched the limits of diet all the way to the extreme. Almost stretched them as far as I have to stretch the waistband of my trousers to be able to wear them. Next I'm switching to dresses, as there is more room for my wobbly tummy. Denial? Me? Never!

Oatmeal cookies from Milk and Cookies (I halved the original recipe in parenthesis to minimise the damage should I end up eating the whole batch of cookies in one go):
170 (85) g all purpose flour
1 (1/2) tbsp ground cinnamon (I actually replaced this with 1 tsp ground cardamom as I'm not a huge fan om cinnamon)
1 (1/2) tsp baking soda
1/2 (1/4) tsp salt
340 (170) g butter
200 (100) g light brown sugar
100 (50) g caster sugar
2 (1) large eggs
1 (1/2) tbsp pure vanilla extract
260 (130) g rolled oats
80 g (1/2 cup) raisins
45 g (1/4 cup) mixed dried peel

The howto:
Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. Combine flour, cinnamon (or cardamom), baking soda and salt in a bowl. Beat the butter, and slowly add the sugars and beat until light and fluffy (original recipe says about 4 minutes). Add the eggs and beat to incorporate. Beat in the vanilla, and then slowly the mixture or dry ingredients and the oats. Before the dough is completely mixed, pour the dough out on a floured surface, flour your hands and do the final light kneading of the dough by hand as an overmixed dough will produce dry and hard cookies. You only want to have all the ingredients mixed, but don't overwork the dough. Ok, at this point I have a confession to make. I did use the electric whisk to mix the whole dough together. But I only gave it a really quick swirl. In theory I totally appreciate the danger of overworking your dough, but I feel like doing it by hand would risk overworking me as I would have to clean up the tabletop and my gooey dough-y hands. Anyways, you should probably do as the lady says in the book, she has made a business out of selling cookies to people so she should know her stuff. I'm just a lazy amateur baker.

Once you have mixed your dough in one way or another, roll the dough into balls about 4 cm (1.5 inches) in diameter and place on a lined baking sheet. The cookies will flatten out quite a bit during cooking, so don't place them too close together, and a maximum of six per baking sheet. The original recipe should make about two dozen cookies, so the halved one makes about a dozen. Gently flatten each ball with your palm a little. Bake for 15 minutes, or until lightly browed around the edges. The centre of the cookie should be slightly soft to the touch. Cool on a rack. The recipe states that the cookies will keep in room temperature for up to a week. In my kitchen there might be one or two left over for the next day. Maybe. 

Still looking like cookies going into the oven... 

Coming out of the oven not so cookie like anymore...

The verdict:
I'm not a very avid cookie baker. Which most certainly doesn't mean that I'm not a fan of cookies. Quite the opposite, I love a good cookie. People tend to divide into two kinds of cookie people, the hard and crunchy cookie people and the soft and gooey almost cake-y type of cookie people. I'm most certainly one of the latter ones, I want my cookies with a bit of a crunch on the outside, but with a chewy, gooey centre. I also don't like my cookies with chocolate chips. I want them with chocolate chunks. The bigger the better. I might have mentioned Ben's Cookies before, but I have to mention them again. There isn't a more perfect cookie in the world than Ben's cookies. They have huge chocolate chunks in them and they are nice, sweet, buttery and chewy. Best eaten while they are still a bit warm from the oven. My favourites are white chocolate and cranberry and the milk chocolate and orange ones. I'm eternally grateful there are isn't a Ben's around in Cambridge, the closest one is in London. Otherwise I might have already induced death by cookie.

The other day however, I surprised myself with a craving for really hard crunchy cookies. You know the type that you buy from supermarkets, and they have a best before date sometime in the next century. I bought a pack of Marks & Spencers white chocolate all butter cookies and they really hit the spot on that day. That was very weird. And they didn't even have huge chocolate chunks in them, just chocolate chips. And then of course there is the cookie my colleague introduced me to when I first moved to Cambridge: Sainsbury's Taste the Difference White Chocolate and Raspberry cookies. I love love love them. They have the added benefit that if you freeze them, they only need a few minutes to thaw and are perfect to eat almost directly out of the freezer. They used to be my go-to self deception cookies, I bought a whole pack of them, ate one and put the rest in the freezer for "later". Sometimes "later" was later that evening, or maybe the next day. But they were all gone very quickly. So now I just can't buy them at all out of fear of inhaling a whole pack before even realising it. 

So what about these cookies? Well, as you can see from the picture, aesthetically they turned out to be one big disaster. I put all fourteen cookies on one baking sheet and they just all melted into one big cookie-y mess. I went back to my recipe to re-check the amounts of ingredients, but I did get it right. So lesson number one is that you shouldn't even try to get more than six cookies per baking sheet if you want them to stay separate from each other and not form a huge giant cookie-pie. Aesthetics aside, the cookies turned out very good. Extremely crunchy and chewy on the outside, but nice and soft on the inside. And strangely enough, I didn't miss chocolate at all. I love the sweetness of the raisins and orange peel and the oats gave the cookies a great crunch.

One thing I found surprising with the recipe was that the dough was not rested at all. Most cookie recipes require you to rest the dough in the fridge from anything around an hour to several days (see this post on recipegirl.com for an in depth discussion on how resting affects the consistency of the cookies). Obviously, there is no way I would ever have the patience to actually rest my cookie dough for days, so I think I will never be able to test how cookies turn out from different doughs. In theory I do understand the need to let the gluten in the dough relax. Also, in a dough that has such a large amount of butter, resting the dough in the cold probably makes a difference. I will certainly use this recipe again, but maybe add just a tad of flour and maybe take down the butter a tad as well. Just for the consistency. But the taste was pretty terrific. Also, you could substitute raisins and peel with pretty much anything you want. Other options I remember from the book was butterscotch, different nuts, sweet or bitter chocolate chips, almonds and Amaretto or Disaronno, orange peel and Grand Marnier. I also want to try candied ginger, I think that would go great with the oats.