When you need cookies NOW and the cookie jar is empty, don’t despair — within 20 minutes you can have a tray of crunchy, nutty, vanilla-y bickies* that will take the edge off your emergency.
These cookies — the easiest in my repertoire — consist of oats, nuts (if you don’t like or tolerate nuts, you can omit them altogether or replace them with chocolate chips), a little flour (I use gluten-free flour), an egg (can be replaced with a flax egg), and butter. Their texture is crisp and crunchy, and they contain just enough sugar to taste comfortingly sweet, but not so much as to send your glucose levels gyrating.
This recipe is based on an oat cookie recipe in Good Food, Good Medicine, a wonderful Mediterranean food & lifestyle guide by internist Miles Hassell MD and his sister Mea Hassell. I’ve tweaked their recipe a little, replacing Dr. Hassell’s hard-to-find Scottish oats with a mixture of rolled oats and oat bran, adding vanilla extract, and drizzling them with melted chocolate (optional).
If you’re a fan of British cookies, you’ll be delighted to learn that painting the cookies with a thick layer of chocolate makes them look and taste a lot like McVitie’s Dark-Chocolate Hobnobs — only gluten-free, with twice the fiber and 2/3 less sugar.
*Informal British word for “biscuit,” which is what the Brits call cookies.
Emergency Cookies (drizzled with tempered chocolate, Hobnob-style)
Ingredients
- 1 stick butter soft
- ⅓ cup brown sugar loosely packed (45 grams)
- 1 large egg
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup traditional rolled oats certified gluten-free if needed
- ½ cup oat bran I used Bob's Red Mills to test this recipe
- ¼ cup all-purpose flour or gluten-free flour blend (I like King Arthur Mills' "Cup for Cup" GF blend)
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 cup pecan nuts, chopped
Instructions
Cookies
- Combine all the ingredients in a medium mixing bowl, and mix with an electric whisk for about one minute until they are well combined.
- Preheat the oven to 350℉ and set thek in the middle of the oven. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Shape the cookies: I use a tablespoon measure to scoop out the dough and squish it into roughly golf-ball-sized lumps with my hands. Place these on the lined baking sheet and flatten them with a water-moistened fork. The cookies can be close together as they don't spread while baking.
- Bake for 15 minutes, or until the edges turn golden brown. (I tested this recipe at altitude; if you live closer to sea level, they may be done after 10-12 minutes).
- Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely. Once they have cooled, transfer to an airtight container. These keep for up to 2 weeks.
Optional Chocolate drizzle (see note below)
- Put 2 oz of the chopped chocolate in a microwave-proof bowl and heat at 50% power for a succession of 30–second bursts, stirring with a spoon in between each cycle until the chocolate is almost fully melted. This should take about 1½ minutes.
- Stir the chocolate until completely melted. Measure its temperature with an instant–read thermometer; it should be between 100 and 115℉. Add the remaining ounce of chopped chocolate, stirring constantly until the mixture is at 88℉.
- Drizzle the melted chocolate onto the cookies with a teaspoon or apply it evenly with a silicone pastry brush.
- Once the chocolate has hardened, transfer the cookies to an airtight tin.
Notes
Nutrition