Flicker’s Lair Blog

Today is Steve’s birthday, so first things first – HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA BTHUTHDY STEVE! (I had a little help from Owl – if you haven’t read AA Milne you should!)

Anyway, last week I asked him what he would like for his birthday dinner, and he said he wanted the Chicken and Ham pie I made a few weeks back that we put in the freezer! Perfect, that leaves me with nothing to do but defrosting! But wait, no, that doesn’t seem right. So I asked if there was anything else he would like – “some kind of oaty cookies with raisins in” – OK, but did he want anything for dessert on his birthday and finally he decided on fruit crumble. Can it get any easier!

I love making crumble, it is one of my favourites, and it is soooooo easy. Put assorted fruit in a dish – we are having apple and some mixed berries that we had in the freezer. Mix together some oats, flour, brown sugar with some butter, add a little cinnamon if it suits your fruit. Once the crumble is crumbly spread over your fruit. Bake. Enjoy with a little custard or ice-cream or both!

The cookies I made last night and are pretty simple, I had run out of applesauce so had to make that first. They turned out beautifully though, they are soft, chewy, oaty goodness and then every once in a while you find a chocolate chip, so good. There is some cookie dough left and I am thinking that it might be interesting to try in a flat pan to make as a more of a flapjack. Most importantly Steve loves them.

While I was preparing apples and baking anyway I decided to also make him up a batch of another recipe I found a while back that I thought he would like – Apple Hermits. WOW! Now I am fussy about my own cooking, but WOW! These are good, these rate up there as my favourites alongside the ginger chocolate cookies I make. They are soft, spicy, appley, yummy, and I am having one for breakfast – don’t tell Steve! When I asked him last night how many stars he would give them so I could rate them on AllRecipes he said 6 …. it is out of 5 – I think he likes them.

RECIPES

Chewy Oatmeal Cookies

• ½ cup butter, softened
• ¼ cup applesauce
• 1 cup brown sugar
• ¹/₃ cup honey
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3 cups rolled oats
• ½ cup raisins
• ½ cup chopped walnuts
• ½ cup semisweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 325°F. Grease cookie sheets.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, applesauce, brown sugar and honey until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well with each addition, then stir in the vanilla.
3. Combine the flour, salt, and baking soda, then gradually stir into the creamed mixture. Finally, stir in the oats, raisins, nuts and chocolate chips.
4. Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheet.
5. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

I found the original recipe on AllRecipes and then traded white sugar for honey.

Apple Hermits

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground cloves
• ½ tsp ground nutmeg
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ cup softened butter
• 1½ cups packed brown sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 cup chopped apples
• 1 cup raisins

1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and salt. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter until light and fluffy. Mix in sugar and egg. Stir in flour mixture, and mix thoroughly. Fold in nuts, apples, and raisins.
3. Drop by rounded teaspoon onto prepared cookie sheets about 1 1/2 inches apart. Bake for 12 to 14 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

Why don’t you head over and see what everyone else is cooking up?

Tags: birthday, cookies, recipe, steve

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 8:25 am and is filed under Food & Drink. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.