Irish Oaten Biscuits (Cookies)

Lalaloula's Note:

These are oaty, crumbly and utterly delicious biscuits from a traditional irish baking book. They can be made into various form, e.g. clovers or fingers (like shortbread fingers) or whatever other shapes you might fancy. ;)

• Total Time: 25 mins
• Prep Time: 10 mins
• Cook Time: 15 mins

Ingredients:

Yield: 20 biscuits

• 180 g oat bran (6 1/3 oz)
• 100 g oats (3 5/8 oz)
• 140 g flour (5 oz)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 50 g icing sugar (1 7/8 oz)
• 180 g melted butter (6 1/3 oz)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F.
2. Combine oat bran, oats, sugar, flour and baking soda in a big bowl. Add butter and mix well. If your dough is too dry, add some water to it until you can work it.
3. Roll out on a lightly floured surface and cut out cookies in desired shape (if making shortbread fingers, dont forget to prick them before baking).
4. Bake for about 15 minutes until cookies are golden and crispy.

Reviews

[Annacia]

My DH has been asking for oatmeal raisin cookies and I have eyed this recipe from time to time. After checking with Loula I went ahead and added a handful of raisins that I plumped in hot water first. My dough did need more liquid so I just added a bit of the raisin water until it was workable. These have the most amazing texture, mine turned out like a cross between a shortbread and a sugar cookie. They are crisp but flaky and tender at the same time. If you choose to cut them out get as many as you possibly can the first time because the scraps don't like to be re-rolled and it crumbles under the rolling pin. I ended up pressing the remains into patties and DH is equally happy with both forms.

[magpie diner]

Terrific biscuits! And thank you Katzen for translating into cups for the dry measures which was helpful, even tho I do live in a metric country and "should" know! I doubled the amount of icing sugar, which was just an extra 1/4 cup, to make them a little more appealing to children. And appealing they are, I'm actually surprised how much they like them. They are a perfect lunchbox snack. I used oat flour, which has lovely flavour but can be difficult to work with. So my dough was too fragile to roll out, I ended up shaping into balls and flattening out as well. I'd probably use a regular flour next time if rolling out was what we wanted. Thanks Loula, these really remind me of Nairn's oat cakes/biscuits that we get here. :)

[Katzen]

I was looking for a crisp oatmeal biscuit, not a cookie... which is why this recipe appealed to me - and it was exactly what I wanted. It's not a sweet cookie, and I found the recipe really easy to make, particularly when I realized that I didn't need to roll it out, I just shaped it into balls and flattened them. I did need to add a scant 1/4 cup of water to the dough, as suggested. For those baking in cups, here are the conversions I figured out by weighing the ingredients: 1 3/4 cups oat bran, 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 cup oatmeal, 1/2 cup icing sugar, and 3/4 cup butter. Thanks Lalaoula! Made for 1-2-3 Hits Tag.