When I was a little girl, one of my favourite things to do on a Sunday morning was to go to the CVS with my dad to pick up the paper. Not to enjoy the journey or anything, but because he always bought me candy when we got to the drug store (my particular favourite was, and still is, Toffifee, but I would swing with whatever floated my boat at the time…).
I kind of have a similar tradition with my little girl.
Because I work about 50 miles from home, and drive a car powered on petrol rather than diesel (purchased well before I had a 100 mile a day commute), and because one of my big driving fears is running out of fuel, I tend to fill up my car about twice a week. You won’t be surprised to know that food, fuel and childcare costs use 66% of my take home pay, with the balance going to my wonderful student loan for the three University degrees I’m not using because I couldn’t afford to… (Not bitter, really…).
So on Saturday morning, Monks and I head out to the petrol station well before Daddy wakes up. I get a tank full of gas, and she gets a treat for breakfast. If I’m feeling a bit flush, I might even swing for a coffee for myself (Monks doesn’t like coffee – before you call Family Services, she’s only tried decaf – she no longer asks to try my coffee in the morning).
This Saturday, when we got inside the petrol station, Monks had a good rummage around – there wasn’t much to choose from as they hadn’t stocked up on the day’s pastries yet (not sure why they don’t do this before they open… but that’s okay – we’ll moan about that another time). She eventually settled on some pan au chocolats and then found these:
I know I can whip up some cookies in no time at home, but she seemed so eager, and it’s just been one of those weeks (Monday began with a flat tire, broken front axle of the car, migraine headache, 3 hours sleep, etc. – the week finished better than it began, but really, it wasn’t a very big ask…)
She usually has a bit of a bite to each in the car on the way home – yes, I let my kid have cookies for breakfast. I often had cake for breakfast on the weekends growing up. I still got in to Oxford. So I’m going with it.
When I got her in the car, I asked her if she wanted a cookie or a chocolate croissant (because her French lessons provided by the insanely expensive nursery apparently don’t extend beyond Frere Jacques), and she said she wanted the raisin cookie. Bless. She thought the chocolate chips were raisins. She was devastated to hear they were not raisins, but chunks of chocolate (we’re still working on her with the whole chocolate thing – she clearly takes after her dad), so agreed to the croissant. The only way to return a smile to her face was to promise her that we would make some raisin cookies when we got home. So that’s just what we did.
Not- petrol station Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
Ingredients:
- 1c sugar (I used demerara)
- 0.5 c butter, softened
- 0.33 c golden syrup or honey
- 2 large or 3 small eggs
- 1.75 c flour
- 2 c rolled oats (mine had added wheat bran – go fibre!)
- 1.125 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 c raisins
- 0.5 – 0.75 c chocolate chunks (optional)
- Preheat oven to 350F/180C, and line cookie sheets with greaseproof paper
- Mix sugar, butter, golden syrup or honey and eggs (ideal if you have a helper)
- In separate bowl, mix flour, oats, baking soda and salt, then add raisins and chocolate if using (if you have a family member who recently left you with a 4 pound bag of assorted hershey’s chocolates – definitely use chocolates – particularly if you have gotten through the majority of the bag alone over a 2.5 week period)
- Mix wet into dry bowl
- Once well combined, either with wet hands or teaspoons (or tablespoons if you want really big cookies) drop blobs of dough onto cookie sheets (these don’t spread hugely, so aim for about 1.5-2″ apart between cookies – I went for 9-12 per baking tray, and only two of my cookies came out holding hands, which is sweet in its own way)
- Bake for 8-10 minutes
- Let cool for a few minutes on baking tray before transferring onto wire rack to cool
My daughter almost shares a particularly vexatious habit with my husband – he doesn’t like to eat home baked goods whilst they are still warm (what planet is he from?!). As usual, I blame my mother-in-law.
I did manage to convince her to eat one whilst they were warm but not melting chocolatey goodness hot. She came back for a second one. Job done.
Things I would do differently, things I learned:
- The original recipe which I’ve had for about 10 years now (ergo not attributed, as it was scribbled down long ago) has the 1 1/8 of baking soda in it. This seems really wrong, and leads to a very soft, pillowy cookie. I wonder if this shouldn’t actually be baking powder, so I will try this next time
- I bet this would rock with dried cranberries and white chocolate – because most things do.
- You can cut hershey’s miniatures with scissors – no knife required!
These are dollar/pound store scissors (three in the pack) and really did the job well, so the next time someone is so generous with the chocolate, I’m going to take the scissors to them earlier. - I could have saved GBP1 by not buying chocolate chunk cookies – next time, ask Monkey what kind of cookies she thinks they are before purchasing!
- When typing out a recipe for oatmeal cookies – make sure you add the oatmeal
This recipe makes enough biscuits to feed a normal family for about a month. If they stay in the house with me, I expect they’ll be done before Friday. So they’re going to work on Monday.
Have a lovely weekend 🙂
certaintyincookiesandtaxes 