With International Women’s Day and Mother’s Day looming, I felt the need to create a recipe.
But then I thought — surely the baking should be done by someone else FOR ME? I love baking, and I’m sure many of you do too, but why would we want to be slaving in the kitchen for others when the celebration is meant to ours? It would be a bit like baking your own birthday cake.
Having said all of that, I’m actually going to do a teensy bit of baking, but it’s a recipe simple enough for children — and husbands/partners/boyfriends. (Apologies if I’ve offended any MasterCheffy males, but we all know that in many cases, it’s the female of the species who spends most time in the kitchen.)
Print it out and leave it around for them to get the hint.
The recipe was inspired by one I found on a Marriage’s flour pack. I was lucky enough to take a tour of their Chelmsford mill yesterday, and they sent me home with a whole box of flours to play with.
Their recipe, which you’ll find here (and on the packet) uses their golden, wholegrain flour, in which the very clever millers have retained the goodness of wholemeal but managed to make it not quite so wholemeal-y in flavour. It’s a bit lighter.
I love anything that gets some goodness into my children. A wholemeal cookie — which also includes oats — gets a big thumbs up from this mum.
They used raisins in their recipe, but I think my little woman might prefer chocolate in her cookies’ so I replaced them with white chocolate chips. (I had a stash from Guittard which are definitely a cut above your average choc chip.) I also added dried cherries — for a bit of colour and a few more vitamins. They are a little tart so a great combo with the white chocolate.
When I went to the cupboard we were clean out of the light muscovado sugar required by the Marriage’s recipe, so decided to go with the Truvia baking blend (of stevia and sugar) which had been idling near the sugar for a while. It promised to brown like sugar, but with 75% fewer calories.
I know a few of these to take to school tomorrow to celebrate International Women’s Day will make little Miss Fresser the happiest girl in town. I may even let her brother in on the treat. And perhaps they will bake for me for Sunday…
Healthy make over golden oat, cherry and white chocolate cookies (loosely based on Marriage’s golden oat and raisin cookies).
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Baking time: 15 – 25 minutes (it will vary; see: below)
Makes 12 cookies
Ingredients:
100g Marriage’s Golden Wholegrain Plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
50g Truvia baking blend (or 100g of soft light brown sugar)
100g butter, softened
1 medium egg, beaten
50g oats
50g white chocolate chips
30g dried cherries
- METHOD
Preheat the oven to 160°C fan/180°C/350°F/ Gas 4. Grease two baking trays or line with baking parchment.
- Mix together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, sugar and salt.
- Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy and beat in the egg. Stir in the flour mixture until it forms a dough.
- Mix in the oats and raisins - I did this by hand but a spoon will do.
- Divide into 12 balls — a rounded tablespoon measure is about the right size to get 12 cookies from the mixture. Place on the baking trays, spaced apart and press down to flatten. I didn’t flatten mine enough, so recommend getting them pretty flatm but no less than 5mm.
- Bake for 15 – 20 minutes until golden. Start checking at about 12 minutes
- Leave to cool a little before transferring to a wire rack.
*You can use sugar if preferred but double the quantity, so use 100g, and the cooking time should be more like 10 – 15 minutes, so keep an eye on them after 10 minutes of cooking time.
