Spring is finally here! And so are all the garden tea parties, barbeques, colours, freshness, Spring Couture and of course my very old friend the Hay Fever!We cannot have everything good, now can we? I love spring in the UK though. I love everything about it. We never experience spring in India or at least in Kolkata. There it goes straight to 30 degrees after winter. Some, however, may argue that winter there is so mild and beautiful that one doesn't need Spring. But said that it is also true that no matter how beautiful the weather is the freshness in the air is absent and so are all the different colours! The bst part of Sopring in this country is the vibrant colours, especially the greens.
One of life's simple joys is to sit in the sun with a cuppa and watch the children play. We are enjoying our Easter break now. While it's lovely to spend some quality time with kids, it's also painstakingly busy and hectic. They get bored very quickly and easily and hence expect you to be an entertainer 24/7. So it's a constant array of backyard picnics, movies, pizzas and sleep overs!
I always keep cookies handy during the school holidays. They are easy to make, can be made in bulk and is mess free!!! The kids can just snack on a couple of cookies and a glass of milk and they are happy bunnies! I have been making this simple Lemon Oat Cookies for quite sometime now and they are perfect accompaniments with your tea and the little one's milk.
Oat Cookies with a hint of Lemon
Ingredients :Makes 20
Butter - Unsalted, 270 gm
Caster Sugar - 160 gm
Soft Brown Sugar - 160 gm
Eggs - 2
Lemon Extract - 1/2 tsp
Plain Flour - 380 gm
Rolled Oats - 110 gm
Salt - 1 tsp
Bicarbonate of Soda - 1 tsp
Cinnamon - Ground, 1/2 tsp
Method :
Preheat the oven to 170 degrees/ Gas 3. Put the butter and sugars in a free standing electric mixer with a paddle attachment and cream until light and fluffy. You can use a normal blender too. In that case blend for 5-6 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well and scrapping any unmixed ingredient with a rubber spatula. Turn it to slow and beat in the lemon extract.
Sift together the flour, salt, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon in a separate bowl. Add the oats and mix well. Add this to the butter mixture and beat well until well mixed.
Arrange equal amounts of cookie dough on the prepared baking trays. Make sure there is enough space between cookies to let them spread. Bake in the pre heated oven for about 12 minutes or until golden brown and firm. Leave to cool slightly in the trays before turning them out on a cooling rack. Store in an airtight container.
Prep Time - 15 minutes
Cooking time - 12 minutes
*Note*
You can add raisins to the batter at the end of the mixing procedure for that ultimate Oat-Rasin Cookies experience. In that case ditch the Lemon extract and add Vanilla extract instead. **
