“I had three in a row that means they must be excellent,” — B
Last year, I spotted a battered baking cookbook by Dan Lepard sitting in a charity shop. “Short and Sweet” is a great book for beginner bakers and for £3 it was damn bargain. Since then, admittedly, I hadn’t opened it once. At least, not until last week. This past weekend when I had my parents visiting, I thought of whipping up some baked goods for them to take home. My parents have opposing appetites — my dad loves things rich and chocolatey (brownies, double fudge cookies), my mum wants something soft and chewy, preferably a bit buttery too so she can dunk it into her morning tea or coffee.
Years ago I made the best oatmeal cookies, I lost the recipe and couldn’t never replicate the recipe again after many failed attempts. But I’ve now found my new favourite. Dan does a great oatmeal and sour cherries recipe. I swapped it for cranberries as I couldn’t find cherries, but you could easily add in raisins as well.
This recipe is super easy and one that I’ve earmarked for future reference. If I had the time, I would pull a Julia & Julia and bake every recipe in the book.
Below is a professional review of the cookies.
“Cookies VERY good 👍” — my dad
Ingredients
225g unsalted butter, softened
375g light soft brown sugar
50g caster sugar
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 large eggs
300g plain flour
1 teaspoon ground
cinnamon
2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
200g rolled oats
200g dried cranberries
Method
Beat the butter, sugars and vanilla extract until light and fluffy.
Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then sift the flour, cinnamon and bicarb together and stir that through, followed by the rolled oats and dried cranberries, until you have a consistent mixture. You might need to add the rolled oats in two batches as it can be quite a thick mixture and requires a good amount of armwork!
Heat the oven to 170°C/150°C fan/335°Egas 3 and line a baking tray with non-stick baking paper. Spoon tablespoon-sized dollops of the mixture onto the tray spaced 4-5cm apart, and bake for 12-14 minutes until barely puffed and just starting to colour at the edges. Leave to cool for a few minutes then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling, while you continue to bake or freeze the rest to use later.