However, baking always restores morale a little, nothing more so than cookies. I took a batch I made recently to a birthday party packed to the rafters with hoards of Icelandic children and the cookies were polished off within a couple of hours.
This recipe is easy - the cookies take all of 15 minutes to prepare, and, served with the morning coffee, they're also an easy way to impress the female in your life.
Here in Scandinavia they love baking with cinnamon and use it in just about everything. For me, the smell of cinnamon cookies wafting through the house is just lovely. Feel free to experiment though - this recipe works just as well with cardamon and a few rum soaked raisins.
You'll need to assemble the following:
- 125g unsalted butter.
- 150g flour.
- 1/2 tsp baking powder.
- 100g golden caster sugar.
- 75g demerara sugar.
- 2 tsp vanilla extract.
- 1 egg, beaten.
- 2 tbs porridge oats.
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon.
- pinch, sea salt.
- 100g dark chocolate, broken in to small chucks.
Proceed as follows:
- Pre heat oven to 190 degrees.
- Melt the butter in a small saucepan.
- Meanwhile mix the 2 sugars in a bowl and pour in the melted butter.
- Beat in the egg, cinnamon and vanilla.
- Sift in the flour and baking powder.
- Add the salt, oats & chocolate and thoroughly stir the whole lot. You should by now have a fairly loose mixture.
- Evenly space pudding-spoon sized dollops on a paper lined baking tray. (They'll spread out a fair bit during cooking.)
- Cook for 8-10 minutes until the cookies turn golden brown
- Remove from oven and leave to firm up for a couple of minutes before carefully transferring them to a wire rack to cool.
Perfect with a mug of mulled wine. Skål! And a merry Christmas to you all!
