Tasty Tuesday #1 Oat and Raisin Cookies

Today's Tasty Tuesday is Oat and Raisin Cookies which are both kind-of healthy (if you cut down the sugar) but filling with the oats. It's based on a few recipes from Rachel Allen's 'Bake' book.

Ingredients:

200g butter (softened) 

100g icing sugar (sifted)

1tsp vanilla extract or 1tsp vanilla sugar (we love the sugar best!)

200g plain flour (you can also use gluten-free flour or spelt flour instead for this recipe, sometimes I do)

1/2 tsp baking powder 

100g porridge oats

Between 1 to 2 Handfuls of Raisins 

1. Preheat for oven to 180 degrees Celsius. 

2. Cream the butter in a mixing bowl with an electric hand mixer until the butter is a soft and creamy consistency. Then add the icing sugar and vanilla extract/sugar to the butter mixture. Beat until the mixture is a pale white and has a fluffy appearance. 

3. Next you sift in the plain flour and baking powder and add the oats and raisins. Mix it until a dough comes together. 

4. Once it's a dough, cover it with cling film (you will need more than expected) and roll it out into a log. The diameter of the log should be about 6cm and the log 30cm in length, but that can be adjusted to your liking. 

5. Allow the dough it firm in the fridge for 30mins to 1 hour until it feels firm but not frozen solid. We made the mistake of not leaving it in too long and the cutting was harder to do as it kind-of fell apart. 

6. Now once it has chilled, unwrap the cling film (but hold on to it) and cut the long into I would say 5mm thick pieces. Again can be adjusted a small bit. Place them onto a baking tray with parchment paper lined already. Make sure that the cookies have enough room to expand a bit when cooking. 

7. Bake them for 15 minutes or until light golden brown or dry to touch. Allow for them to cool on a wire rack. 

Tips:

You can store them in an air-tight for I suppose a week but I doubt they would last that long. Another thing is if you don't want to use up all the dough, place it back into the cling film in its log shape and it should keep in the fridge for a few days before cooking so they are great for making in advance. However allow the dough it thaw out or a few minutes to make it easier to cut into slices. The raisins could also be replaced with the same amount of chocolate chips, if you want to be a little less healthy. 

For this one I don't have photos of (oops!) but I think they are delicious but easy and simple to make. Anyway, ta-ta for now!