Oat & Almond Crumble Cookies

I try to create my own recipes when I can, although I don’t sit there with a pen and paper and dream them up out of nowhere. They evolve out of trial and error, hunger and craving.

Here is how even a very simple things{we}make post comes into being.

In the beginning there was crumble: A basic recipe from some children’s cookery cards or from my Mum’s old Dairy Diary, I don’ recall. That is why the quantities here are in ounces not grams. It’s a throwback to the old days of imperial measurements.

Over the years I started to add different sugars as I liked the variation in flavour and crunch they gave. I like a sprinkle of demerara on top of the crumble. Gradually some of the flour was substituted for oats. Ed likes oats in his crumble.

Then almonds entered the mix. Slivered almonds stirred in just before the crumble mix is tumbled on to the soft fruit to add a nutty note.

So then we had, what is now our standard crumble:

One large crumble is too much for us to eat in one go so I began to save half of the mix in the fridge for a rainy day.

I found that if I added an extra spoonful of butter to the rainy day mix I could make it into a bonus batch of crumbly biscuits. The maiden voyage of these was on our holiday in Wales back in 2009.

Recently I have added the extra step of pressing the cookies after they have been in the oven for 10 minutes. You can flatten them down with the back of a fork, or with a cookie stamp like the one I have here. It leaves them a little soft in the middle and crisp on the edges.

I know that the ‘handmade’ imprint doesn’t show too well on these rather rustic cookies, but I kind of like that.

It makes it quite clear that they are very much handmade.

I always do a few test-bakes to write down some meaningful quantities – I find ‘a spoonful of butter’ and ‘a splash of milk’ confuses people.

Finally I take some photos and write it all here for you…but mostly for me, so I can remember how to make them next time.

There is always a next time.

Oat and Almond Crumble Cookies

Makes 10

4 oz Plain Flour
3 oz Porridge Oats
1 oz Flaked Almonds
4 oz Soft Butter
4 oz Soft Brown Sugar
1 tbsp Milk (or a touch more if they won’t mould together)

Tip 1: Weigh out the sugar and almonds and put them in a bowl to one side and get the milk out ready – this will save you getting buttery hands everywhere in a minute.

Tip 2: Soften any ‘fridge cold’ butter by microwaving dice sized chunks of it on medium for 20 seconds.

Rub the butter into the flour and oats until crumbly, then mix in the almonds and sugar.
Add the milk and start to squash the mix firmly into balls a little bigger than a golf ball.
Flatten them between your palms a little so that they are like a burger.
NB You may get very sticky fingers…I will allow you to dust your hands with a bit of flour.
Place them on baking parchment on a cookie sheet.
Bake at 180 degrees C for 10 minutes.
Take them out of the oven and press each hot cookie with a fork or with a cookie stamp.
Cook for 5-6 minutes more until golden on all the edges.
Allow to cool on the tray for 5 minutes then cool further on a cooling rack.

Eat soon.