Friday 22 October 2010

It's all about the oats

I can pretty much resist all types of temptations. I am not the type of person who will open a packet of biscuits and 15 minutes later find that the whole thing has been completely demolished. However when it comes to anything oaty, its a completely different story all together. When I am faced with a golden, chewy, flapjack, a comforting bowl of porrdige or even a great oatcake topped with a chunk of mature chedar cheese, my will power just seems to go out of the window. However, what always makes me feel slightly better after I have devoured half a tray of freshly baked flapjacks is the nutritional benefits to eating these lovely little, pearly oats.
As we all know oats are a great source of slow releasing energy. They also recieve pretty good press in terms of their cholesterol lowering properties and also help reduce the chance of heart disease, which lets be honest at my age is not something I tend to think about, but nevertheless we all know that oats are good for us. So I would say, get in that kitchen, get out a bowl,a wooden spoon and put some music on and make these delicious biscuits.

Oat and Raisin Cookies

225g softened butter
150g granulated sugar
200g light brown sugar
2 eggs
245g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
175g oats
240g raisins
(optional: few handful of white chocolate chips)

1) Beat the butter together with the sugars, till light and creamy.
2) Mix the flour, salt, cinnamon, baking powder, oats and raisins.
3) Add the eggs one at a time to the creamed butter and sugar.
4) Gradually add the flour and oat mixture(along with the white chocolate)to the butter and mix till everything comes together.
5) Chill the batter for a few hours.
6) Place 50g balls of the batter onto a greased baking tray and then flatten the biscuits a little with a fork, the back of a spoon or just with your hands. Bake for 20 minutes or until the just begin to turn a bit brown at the edges, at 180C.