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| Oatcakes |
I love Scottish oatcakes - they're so delicious, plain and hearty. I especially like them on a cheese platter, but you can eat these oaty biscuits in any number of ways - with jam and butter, or even plain. Many years ago, I used to work in a fancy schmancy food store, and a sweet old lady came in once to buy a packet of oatcakes. As I scanned the box, I asked if she was planning to have them with cheese.
"Oh goodness, no!" she replied, laughing. "I like to eat one each evening with a glass of water as I watch the news."
Too cute!
Anyhoo, as I mentioned in December's Unblogged Files, some friends hosted a CHEESEMAS party after Christmas, where we all brought cheeses and other fabulous tidbits and ate an alarming amount of cheese. I really wanted to bring oatcakes, but for some reason they're ridiculously expensive at the shops - something like ten or twelve dollars for a small packet. (I rarely bought them even when I used to get a staff discount). In contrast, a gigantic bag of oats is like, a dollar. Easy decision made - I baked them from scratch!
I googled a few recipes, and came to the conclusion that oatcakes are made much in the same way as shortcrust pastry (i.e. flour and butter with a little water to bind), just with oats replacing most of the flour and a lower ratio of butter-to-dry ingredients.
I used a processor to rub the butter into the flour and oats, and to whizz up the oats a little - I used quick oats, but was still worried the dough wouldn't clump together otherwise.
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| Oatcake Dough |
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| Oatcake Dough |
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| Rolled out dough |
After the first biscuits were cut out, I found it quite difficult to bring the dough together and re-roll it, as it's quite dry. Hot tip: cut as many out of the first round of dough as you can!
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| Ready for baking |
Ta-dah! I was really impressed by how uniform and professional they looked - the dough is very easy to roll out to an even thickness. (It's the subsequent re-rolling of the scraps that gets tricky!)
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| Oatcakes |
And because I don't know the meaning of the word "enough", I whipped up a batch of Nigella's parmesan shortbreads too. I used the recipe from Nigellissima, and just grated extra Parmesan on top for extra cheesy savoury goodness. These ones were, um.. less uniform looking, but totally delicious and compulsive. I definitely recommend making these for parties! (Or just to eat).
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| Nigella's Parmesan Shortbread with Extra Parmesan |
As for the actual cheeses, we brought some Yarra Valley Dairy marinated feta and a pot of Long Clawson Stilton, as well as a little bag of muscatels and dried apple slices.
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| #CHEESEMAS |
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| Yarra Valley Dairy marinated feta, strawberries, muscatels and dried apple/pear, Parmesan shortbreads, Oatcakes |
Our hosts Amelia and DM provided, among many other wonderful things, a thick wedge of La Luna goats cheese, an aniseed baguette and some quince paste...
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| Aniseed baguette, La Luna goats cheese, quince paste |
... as well as a jar of truffle honey. (Potent and delicious).
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| Goats cheese on aniseed baguette with truffle honey |
Amelia has also been going great guns pickling! She made gherkins, pickled radishes (which tasted floral like lychees to me), and these awesome pickled mushrooms - from mushrooms that SHE GREW HERSELF. Get outta here!
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| Amelia's fabulous homemade pickles - radish, gherkin, mushroom |
We also tried some smoked salt, which was lovely. (It seems like the type of fabulous and extravagant ingredient that someone like Ina Garten or Nigella would keep in their pantry!)
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| Smoked Salt |
As for the oatcakes, I really liked them! (And people recognised that they were oatcakes without my having to say anything - hooray!) They were oaty and slightly crisp, but sturdy enough to support the weight of all the cheese I kept piling onto them. Everything you want in an oatcake.
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| Oatcake |
Scottish Oatcakes
Recipe adapted from a community recipe submitted on Good Food by zetallgerman
Ingredients
225 grams quick oats, plus extra for dusting
60 grams plain flour, plus extra for dusting
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
60 grams cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
60 - 80 millilitres hot water from a recently boiled kettle
Method
Preheat the oven to 190C.
Place the oats, flour, bicarb, salt and sugar in a food processor. Whizz briefly just to mix. Add the butter and whizz again until the mixture resembles damp sand or large breadcrumbs.
Tip the mixture into a mixing bowl, gradually add the 60 millilitres hot water and stir with a wooden spoon to mix until you have a rough dough. You may or may not need to add the extra water, depending on the oats and flour.
Sprinkle a work surface with extra flour and oats, and roll out the dough to approximately 1/2 a centimetre thick. Cut out with a floured cookie cutter and place on a lined tray. The dough is quite difficult to re-roll, so try and get as many oatcakes out of the first roll as possible.
Arrange the oatcakes on lined baking trays, and bake for 20-30 minutes or until lightly golden brown. Allow to cool on a wire rack, before serving with cheese, butter, or alone with a glass of water whilst watching the news.
Makes 24, depending on the size of your cookie cutter
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3 comments
Cheesemas! What a brilliant idea! I tend to have oatcakes with a fat slice of vintage cheddar, but you're right, they're ridiculously exxy!
ReplyDeleteLong Clawson would be an awesome pirate name. Or for a cat.
ReplyDeletePS Peanut butter on oatcakes with dulce de leche.
PPS I want to be at that party, time-travel style.
Those oatcakes are beautiful - so uniform and just like you would see out of a packet.
ReplyDelete