Every once in a while, I wish breakfast could make itself. Especially when it’s cold. That’s when I wish breakfast would also feed me! The oatmeal fruit and nut breakfast cookies come close enough.
You see, I’m not a morning person. But when you’re all grown up, you have responsibilities — aka breakfast, ensuring you start the day with good food, and if you are staying with your family, you ensure they eat well before heading out. But with the onset of winter and those frightening frosty mornings, the not-a-morning-person-who-has-to-be-a-morning-person doesn’t feel like getting out of bed! Every once in a frosty morning, you need a break. Enter, oatmeal fruit and nut breakfast cookies. When they’re around, you can lay in bed a whole 20 minutes longer!
I know you’re smiling. These cookies warm your heart, don’t they? Well, they do! Try them, and you’ll see what I mean. They’re yummy and nutritious and filling — everything that you want your breakfast to be. And they’re cookies! Who doesn’t like a cookie? You’ll have to make them a day or two in advance though — and don’t frown, they’ll only take up half an hour to put together. And you’ll get to enjoy them the rest of the week!
The oatmeal fruit and nut breakfast cookies are not just for breakfast though. They’re for snack times, times when you need a shot of instant energy, times when you’ve got a long distance to cover on your way home, and so on — you get the drift. They’re easy to store and carry around too. And every time you take a bite, you’ll set forth a burst of delicious healthy homemade goodness on your tongue!
With a baby in the house, I find myself awake way too early many times. And it’s difficult to fall asleep some of those times, and before you know it, you’re hungry. That’s when these delicious oatmeal fruit and nut breakfast cookies come to my rescue. They’re perfect for those times when I do not want to venture out of my bedroom to make myself breakfast; I’m content to munch them in bed all curled up with a book.
Do let me know how they turn out! Use #notjustspice to tag me. Also, check out these oatmeal raisin cookies as a substitute when you only have raisins.
- 175 g (6 oz) plain flour or wheat flour
- 150 g (5 oz) rolled oats or the quick-cooking kind
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
- 125 g 4 oz soft light-brown sugar
- 28 g 1 oz raisins or dried apricots
- 28 g 1 oz dried cranberries or cherries
- 55 g 2 oz mixed nuts, roughly chopped (I used cashews and almonds)
- 1 medium egg lightly beaten
- 150 ml / 1/4 pint vegetable or sunflower oil
- 4 tablespoons milk or almond/coconut/cashew milk for a vegan cookie
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Preheat the oven to 200ºC (400ºF).
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Mix the flour, oats, ground ginger, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, sugar, and the fruits and nuts together in a bowl.
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In another bowl, beat the oil, milk and egg together.
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Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour the wet mixture in. Mix it well with a wooden spoon to make a soft dough.
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Place spoonfuls of the dough on a baking tray that is slightly oiled, and flatten the tops slightly with the tines of a fork. It doesn’t have to be perfectly round. Keep them about 2 inches away from each other as the cookies will grow in size as they bake.
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Put them in the oven and let them bake for 13 minutes until they are golden.
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Remove from the oven and let them cool for a good 3 minutes before to transfer them onto a wire for further cooling. If you try to take a hot cookie from the tray, it’ll crumble.
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Serving: Serve when cool.
Store these deliciously healthy cookies in an airtight jar, and they’ll last for about 4-5 days. You can store the dough in the fridge — wrap it in clingfilm, and it'll last for 5 days. When you want to bake, cut off the desired amount and keep the rest back in the fridge.