These crisp little numbers strike a middle ground between cookie and cracker, another take-with-tea-or-coffee-treat like shortbread or a scone. They are ridiculously easy to make and the ingredients are common pantry items.
I have no idea where this recipe came from. I found it in my computer where it merely looked like this: “2oz su, 4oz bu, 4oz oats, 2oz fl. Cr tog bu su add fl oats knead roll cut – 20 mins.” All that is shorthand for sugar, butter, flour, ounces, cream together butter sugar, add flour, oats, etc. and is the kind of note taking I do when someone is telling me a recipe out loud. Wouldn’t it have been nice if I had noted who?
The recipe reminds me of a couple oatcake recipes I saw in my former mother-in-law’s recipe collection. She was a Cape Breton girl, from Port Hawkesbury, and took a few Scottish recipes with her when she moved to Niagara with her husband to begin married life and start a family of three boys. Then she brought them with her to Belfast, Maine.
The recipe is probably a pretty standard oat cake or oat round. If you hanker for something a little sweeter, consider making sandwich cookies by putting icing between two of them. Or serve with cheese instead for a savory version. Tender, oaty, a little sweet, buttery. Lovely little item.
I weighed my ingredients according to my shorthand notations, then put them into our regular measuring cups.
- ¼ cup sugar
- ¼ cup, or half a stick of butter
- ½ cup flour
- 1 cup rolled oats
- Heat the oven to 325 and grease a baking sheet or line it with parchment paper.
- Cream together the sugar and butter until it very smooth.
- Beat in the flour, and then the oats, and mix until the dough cleans the sides of the bowl.
- Pat or roll out the dough about a quarter inch thick, then cut rounds with a cookie cutter or cut the dough into squares or bars.
- Place on baking sheet and bake for twenty to twenty-five minutes until golden brown.