I was craving cookies.
I knew I had enough ingredients in the cupboard to whip up drop cookies. I leafed through my cookbooks for inspiration and decided on oatmeal raisin cookies as the recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook was making my tummy growl in anticipation! I started to get the ingredients together and found a bag with about with still a third of the mixed dried fruit and peel languishing in my baking supplies basket. So instead of following the recipe in the cookbook, I improvised and put together what I call a cupboard cookie recipe – because you’re basically using ingredients you find in your cupboard!
Ingredients:
- 135g unsalted butter, room temperature and softened
- 80g soft brown sugar
- 80g caster sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 190g plain flour
- 80g oatmeal (I used wholegrain rolled oats, but quick cooking oats work too)
- 1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
- 110g of mixed dried fruit and peel
- 70g ground almonds, optional
Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 170°C
- In a bowl, mix flour, oats, dried fruit, salt, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and ground almonds (if using), until well-incorporated.
- Because my hands get tired really quickly, I now, more often than not use a mixer, but this can be done by hand (it’ll just take a lot of elbow power) first with a pastry blender (which I will always call a pastry cutter) and then with a balloon whisk. Cream the butter and sugars until the mixture is smooth and a light brown colour. Add the egg and the vanilla and mix until well-combined.
- Add the flour and dried fruit mixture to the sugar and butter mixture until combined and you can no longer see the flour.
- Drop batter, a heaping tablespoon at a time, onto a lined baking tray (Useful tip: if you’d like more uniform-sized cookies, use an ice-cream scooper. I use a 45mm one.). Make sure the cookies are evenly spaced. I bake 6 cookies per tray.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 11-13 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to sit in the baking tray for about 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Makes 24 cookies.
Yellywelly 