Wooing our sweet but finicky landlady was the motive behind baking these quick cookies. Just back from a long holiday, I was taking my time settling back into the daily routine, when our nice but neatnick landlady decided to drop in since she was passing through town. Despite being a fellow neatnick, I found myself experiencing an anxiety attack. After a few deep breaths and talking to myself to calm down, I decided that I had to impress her with something extra other than the excellent maintenance of her house (yes, I’ll shamelessly take the credit for that). After all, she was going to see the place for the first time in eight months since we moved in.
I was short on time and decided to bake these fruit and oat cookies since they were super quick to rustle up and didn’t require too many utensils that would prolong washing-up time. The recipe is also very flexible – my cookies have dried cranberries, mixed peels and glacé cherries, but you could add raisins, chopped pistachios, pecans, candied fruits…pretty much whatever you have at home. The cookies bake in 5-7 minutes so I had thirty ready in a snap. And did I mention that they’re not dripping with butter and have a healthy dose of oats which make them perfect as an after-school snack with a glass of milk for your kids.
Quick Fruit 'n' Oatmeal Cookies
Ingredients
- 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
- 11/2 cups rolled oats
- 1/2 cup butter at room temperature
- 1 egg
- 3/4 brown sugar
- 1/2 cup dried cranberries
- 1/2 cup mixed peel chopped
- 1/2 cup glacé cherries chopped
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2-3 tbsps milk if necessary
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C and line a baking sheet with greased parchment.
- Sift together the flour with the baking soda.
- Cream butter and sugar in a bowl and beat in the egg. Then mix in the flour and vanilla extract followed by the oats and dry fruit.
- Use an ice cream scoop or rounded spoon to drop the sticky dough 1.5 inches apart on the baking sheet. Flatten each scoop lightly with a flat spatula and bake for 5-7 minutes till golden brown. Cool on a wire rack and store in an airtight tin.
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