Last updated 12:01, Friday, 25 July 2008

Grainne Jakobson concludes her home-baking series

THIS is the last of my home baking series and I am making some crunchy oaty biscuits. They are delicious eaten still warm from the oven and yours, like mine, will rarely make it to the biscuit tin! This recipe can easily be adapted to make the even more popular Chocolate chip biscuits or cookies. I am not sure when biscuits became cookies but we tend now to use both words now. The original American cookies were softer and chewier than our traditional biscuits, these biscuits can be either – just bake them for a little longer to make them more crunchy and less for a softer cookie.

Oats have played a huge part in the Scottish diet for centuries and are used for a wide range of flapjack type biscuits, bannocks (savoury biscuits or oatcakes), skirlie (made from toasted oats and onion and served with mince) and, of course, porridge. Oats are ideally suited to growing in the Scottish climate which has a long, cool growing season and plenty of rain to swell the grains. They were relatively cheap to produce and so became a staple of the diet and were very important in sustaining the, mostly rural, Scottish communities during periods of famine and hardship.

Oats are not fussy plants and could be grown on any piece of land which was useful to the local people. When the grains are sufficiently plump they are harvested, graded, cleaned and then dried before milling. Oat production is now big business but some of the smaller privately-owned mills are still operating and produce the finest oats. The grains are milled into 4 types of ‘flour cuts’, these are either fine, medium, rough and pinhead. Traditionalists would argue that the best porridge is made with this type of oatmeal, soaked in water overnight, and then cooked in water with salt and served with cold milk. This ‘proper’ porridge undoubtedly has a better texture and an ‘oatier’ taste. Unfortunately I remember only too well having to eat my grandmother’s porridge and not daring to say that I much preferred the ‘English’ version cooked with milk and served with sugar. To do so would run the risk of being called ‘soft’ and even worse ‘an English softie’ by my many, Scottish cousins! Nowadays it has become much more common to use rolled oats for porridge, these are thin flakes of oatmeal that are very quick to cook. The famous, kilted Scotsman pictured on a box of porridge oats, standing on top of a mountain and looking invincible shows that the health giving properties of porridge have become legend! Nowadays, of course, research has confirmed that the grains are packed with zinc, iron and protein and can sustain the body for a long time as the energy is released into the blood stream slowly. So oats are a great source of energy especially if you are going to do anything strenuous such as climbing a mountain and will help to keep the hunger pangs at bay. They are now recognised as one of the seven great ‘super foods’.

CRUNCHY OATY BISCUITS

LIKE all good recipes, this one has been passed down from generation to generation. It came to me from my Scottish friend, Fiona, and I hope that you will like it too and pass it on to someone else. Like many good recipes it has very few ingredients, only six. Compare this with the huge list on many commercially-made biscuits some of which you wouldn’t even recognise as food – another good reason to make your own. The oats give them a delicious taste and the biscuits would be ideal for popping into a lunch box or taking to a picnic. At the risk of upsetting those from over the border by casting aspersions about the Caledonian character I have to say that they are also very economical to make.
These biscuits are easy to make using the melted method and then the mixture is spooned onto a baking sheet, in rough piles, so there is no rubbing in of fats and flour; no rolling out and no cutting out. They really are child’s play to make and children (and adults) will enjoy making them.

Ingredients
125g (4 oz) Plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
125g (4 oz) rolled oats
125g (4 oz) unrefined caster sugar
125g (4oz) block margarine or butter
1 tablespoon golden syrup

(It is helpful to have two trays if you have them as the biscuits take up quite a lot of space in the oven)

Method

1 Put the flour, baking powder and oats in a bowl and mix together.
2 Melt the sugar, margarine and syrup in a small pan and then add to the dry ingredients.
3 Stir until incorporated. Drop approx a small desert spoonful of mixture on to the baking sheet, it helps to use a teaspoon to push the mixture off the spoon.
4 Bake for about 20 minutes in a medium oven at approximately 160C (300F), Gas mark 2.
When golden, remove from the oven, allow them to cool a little and then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.

NOTE: It is easy to put too much mixture on the tray, the biscuits need room to spread or you’ll end up with one large one!

If you would like to be added to the mailing list to receive the new programme of demonstrations starting in September then Grainne at: Woodend Cookery, Woodend, Egremont CA22 2TA
Phone: (01946) 813017
email: gmjakobson@sky.com
woodendcookery.co.uk