Oaty Chocolate Chip Cookies – Random Recipes #36

This month’s Random Recipes challenge is to make something from a recipe book received this Christmas. Well I didn’t receive any recipe books this year as such, but my aunt has been having a good clear out recently and happened to be staying with us over Christmas. In my stocking I found a Woman and Home magazine supplement from 1986 entitled Irresistible Ways with Chocolate – a real vintage publication and I was delighted with it. Interestingly many of the bakes that are in vogue now seem to have been revived from that era – cakes with meringue, different coloured layer cakes, marble cakes and differently flavoured Battenburgs; lots of fresh fruit and nut recipes too. The other interesting thing is that, by and large, the recipes have less sugar in them than many of our more modern ones do. The sweeter bake has slipped over from the US I suspect.

As there were so many recipes on one page it was a bit difficult to be completely random, but I ended up with a recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies. These were made with rolled oats and I do like a good oaty biscuit. They are also simple and quick to make which is an added bonus after so much Christmas baking.

This is how I made:

Oaty Chocolate Chip Cookies

• Chopped 170g mixed chocolate (mostly dark) into bits.
• Creamed 110g unsalted butter with 85g dark brown sugar until very pale.
• Beat in a medium sized egg and 1/2 tsp vanilla extract.
• Added 60g wholemeal flour, 110g rolled oats, scant teaspoon of baking powder.
• Stirred together with the chocolate until all combined.
• Placed teaspoonfuls onto lined baking trays placing them well apart. I made 27.
• Baked at 180C for 11 minutes until golden then placed on a wire rack to cool.

These were not only simple to make, but thoroughly delicious – chewy and very chocolatey. They lasted well in an air tight tin for a few days, but could also be frozen and taken out individually as needed.

Random Recipes is a funtastic blogging event from Dom of Belleau Kitchen which can be very challenging at times. I particularly like it as you never quite know what you are going to get and it stops my recipe books gathering dust on the shelves.

For this bake, I rounded up all my odds and ends of chocolate which had been sitting in the cupboard looking untidy and taking up space. These included some blackberry flavoured dark chocolate, some 56% and some 70% dark chocolate. Other than the chocolate, these are cheap and cheerful biscuits to make so I am sending them off to Credit Crunch Munch with Camilla of Fab Food 4 All and Helen of Fuss Free Flavours.