For some reason my fridge has a good stock of cooked food and our only objective is to finish them and then refill. That means almost no cooking so that gave me time to improve on my baking skills. It is only now that I feel a bit more comfortable exploring recipes using my oven. I had borrowed a book from the library and it has about 80 different recipes, not that I can just follow them to the letter because I either do not have some ingredients or do not use them etc. Anyway, it is quite inspiring to read through some recipes and get some ideas. I wanted to make a low fat/calorie cookie that we could snack on at tea time. It was indeed a soft cookie that I wanted and I got it! I chose not to use any refined sugar and as far as possible get the sweetness naturally. I added as many goodness as possible and this includes dates, currants, raisins and apple, not to forget the oatmeal that is rich in fibre. If you appreciate sweetness in fruits, you will enjoy this recipe. If you have a sweet tooth, increase the quantity of brown sugar. Here is how I did it...
½ cup flour (maida/all purpose flour)
½ cup oatmeal
Pinch of salt
¼ cup soft brown sugar
50-75 gms butter, softened (you could partly substitute with vegetable oil)
2 tablespoons apple butter
Handful of raisins and currants each
8-10 dates soaked in hot water and pureed with just enough water to enable grinding process
Beat together the sugar and butter until soft and combined
Add the dates puree, apple butter, pinch of salt and combine
Add the flour and oatmeal and combine well
Add the currants and raisins and mix
Put teaspoon full of mixture on baking tray lined with baking paper and flatten it slightly. I used the help of a biscuit cutter to maintain some sort of shape.
Bake in preheated oven at 180degC for 12 minutes or until the edges brown
Cool and enjoy!
My little one loved this cookie and so did I. It was very light to eat and the sweetness from all natural ingredients did make a difference.
Wonderful recipe Veena!! did you use quick cook oats or rolled oats ?
ReplyDeletehi, i used oatmeal, it is slightly different in consistency compared to rolled oats. oatmeal is more like crushed oats. I do not use quick cook oats as they are not as rich in nutriion as regular oats due to the processig they go through. In the absence of oatmeal, I would use rolled oats
ReplyDeleteas far as I know oatmeal is the term that refers to cooked rolled oats / quick oats - no? I use rolled oats normally ..do you think I can just use it directly in this recipe without grinding them or cooking them ?
ReplyDeleteHi SushMira, i googled further and noticed americans call rolled oats/porridge oats as oatmeal. However it is slightly different here like i mentioned before. There have been a couple of other recipes where i stopped powdering oats in the interest of time and except the finish and tiny effect on texture, it made no difference. this would be a soft cookie anyway, so should be no problem :)
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot for the info Veena!
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