I like baking things with oatmeal in them because I can ‘kid on’ to myself that they are really quite healthy, but if you look at the amount of sweet stuff in the ingredients list you will realise that I am of course deluding myself. Och well, THEY do say that porridge oats bring your cholesterol down so these biscuits are maybe not too bad for you! Yes it does look like a cake, it’s a sort of inbetweeny texture, perfect if you don’t want anything too hard against your teeth!
100g/ 4 oz of flour/ 1 cup (with plain flour add 1 level tsp of baking powder)
half a level teaspoon of salt
100g/ 4 oz/ 1.5 cups oatmeal or porridge oats
50g/ 2 oz/ a third of a cup of sugar
75g/ 3 oz black treacle (molasses)
100g/ 4 oz / 1 stick of butter or margarine
oatmeal to sprinkle on top
Put the flour, baking powder if used and salt together into a bowl. Stir in the oatmeal. Put the sugar, black treacle and butter or margarine into a saucepan and heat gently until just melted. Cool slightly and then add to the dry ingredients and mix well. Press the mixture into a round cake tin, I lined mine with greaseproof paper, but you could just grease the tin. Sprinkle the surface with some oatmeal. Bake in the centre of the oven at 350 F / 180 C or Gas Mark 4 for 20-25 minutes. Cool slightly, cut into wedges, then lift out carefully and complete cooling on a wire tray.
This is a recipe which you can play around with a lot, if you aren’t too keen on the flavour of black treacle then you could substitute golden syrup, which I think is called corn syrup in the US. You could also add some spices like ginger, cinnamon or nutmeg, or add some dried fruit. In future I don’t think I’ll bother to sprinkle the oatmeal on top. I also think that the next time I try this recipe I’ll leave out the 2 oz of sugar as although this is tasty I found it to be very sweet.
The easiest way to measure the treacle is of course to put the tin on your scales and take spoonfuls out of it until the weight has gone down by the required amount, 3 ounces in this case. You’re best to err on the side of underbaking I think as if you overbake it will be really hard, definitely best with custard poured over it to soften it! This batch is quite soft, almost cakey in texture, certainly not crunchy, which with my teeth is a bonus!
I had intended having a Foodie Friday last week and baked shortbread for the blogpost. I’ve made plenty of shortbread in my days, but I was given a new shortbread mould as a Christmas present, one of those pottery ones with a lovely thistle design on it, but the shortbread just refused to come out of it, despite the fact that I did as instructed and dusted it with icing/powdered sugar. Obviously I didn’t put enough sugar into it so I’ll have to have another go at that soon.
This sounds delicious, and I’m going to try baking it.
I don’t think though that corn syrup is the same as golden syrup – at least it doesn’t taste the same! I like golden syrup much better – it tastes better to me. You can find small plastic bottles at lots of grocery stores these days. But I love dark molasses, so I’d be using that.
Lisa,
Thinking about it, golden syrup must be different from corn syrup, I’ve never tasted corn syrup though. I love black treacle and I’ve been known to have it spread on top of bread and butter – delicious.
This sounds easy and good. Molasses is good for you, full of minerals and, according to some web sites, is practically a miracle food. Since I don’t use dairy butter, I can also cut out the cholesterol. So, enjoy the oat cakes! I plan to make some as soon as I buy a nice little scale to measure out the ingredients.
Joan,
It’s very easy to make and I used margarine, I only use butter for shortbread as I think it does make a difference to the flavour if you use marg. If you don’t want to buy scales I can easily weigh the ingredients out and convert to your US cup measurements.
Not Joan, but could you please, for another US reader?
Lisa,
I’ll make the golden syrup version tomorrow and find out how many US cups the ingredients are, Peggy bought me a set of them. Then I’ll update the recipe.
Those llok yummy. We do that at my house too. If it has oatmeal in it it must be good for us. Likewise when it comes to things like pumpkin cupcakes or zucchini bread or carrot cake or a cherry pie. All good for us! đŸ™‚
Stefanie,
Have you had chocolate beetroot cake? – delicious, you’d never believe it is mainly beetroot – and it’s so good for you!
Looks yummy, I must make some shortbread in my mound, mine is wintry patterns, but I have to grease the mould? If it is successful I will perhaps post it, though I think I may well have done at some point before!
Jo,
I thought that I should grease the mould as usual but the instructions on this pottery one say dust with flour or icing sugar. Maybe I should try greasing and dusting it.