Changes in diets (no not fad diets – never fad diets) are always a good thing. It forces you to be creative with the ingredients you have a surplus of as no one is eating them. Oatmeal has gone the way of the dodo in my house. This has left me with about 3 large bags – you know the kind that go on sale so you buy a lot so you save a lot?!? Who would have thought it would have fallen out of favor? Anyway, I have these bags of oatmeal and needed to make things out of them. If not to use them up then just to free up cupboard space.
I looked at lots of recipes but came across this recipe from that beautifully accented French Canadian Chef – Ricardo. Modified slightly, I prefer currants to raisins, and I added walnut pieces. Truly a wonderful recipe, these make chewy delicious cookies with great flavors. The recipe says you should soak the raisins overnight in a combination of whisky and orange juice. But that would require planning on my part – not! What I did do was add the whisky and orange juice to my currants and put them on the stove until the mixture was bubbling, then turned it off and let it steep. The currants plumped up nicely. Sadly the whisky and orange juice were discarded (no, I didn’t try a teaspoon of the boiled orange juice/whisky combination that almost caused my tongue to be declared a war zone. I’m not that desperate – ahem).
I made some big cookies using a 1/4 cup measure, and some smaller ones (you know I like small cookies, less guilt when you have more, in my twisted logic) using a tablespoon. They spread so leave room for the large ones. They should be more brown than golden. Now this may be a result of the Churn 84 higher fat butter I’m using. So give them a chance to harden out of the oven before trying to move them onto a cooling rack, otherwise they will just crumble (don’t panic if they do crumble, I call these the Chef’s sampler cookies). I got 12 large (almost 5″ diameter), 24 small (about 3″ diameter)and one large one – about the size of a small pizza, that I cut into wedges, pizza style of course. So clearly one batch makes a lot of cookies. These stay chewy for up to one week if stored in an airtight container – trust me, they won’t last that long. As always – enjoy!
1 cup Churn 84
1 3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups rolled oats
1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup currants
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup whiskey
1/4 cup orange juice
1 cup Ghirardelli chocolate chips
Pre-heat your oven to 350f. Line 2 – 3 baking sheets with parchment paper – set aside
In a small pot, combine the whiskey and orange juice and bring to a boil, remove from the heat and the currants and walnuts and let them steep in the hot liquid until they cool
In the mixer using the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar together
Add the eggs – one at a time, and vanilla, stir well, scrape down the bowl between each egg
In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking soda and salt – add it to the butter mixture, stir to incorporate
Add the cooled drained currants and chocolate chips – mix well
Using a 1/4 cup ice cream scoop or tablespoons, scoop out the dough onto the prepared cookie sheets
Bake for 10-12 minutes (the larger cookies took closer to 17 minutes, the smaller were good at 12 – IMO (almost like “in my opinion”, but really means “in my oven”) or until the edges are golden brown and the middles are set
Let sit for 10 minutes then transfer to a wire rack and let cool – don’t forget to try any mangled cookies
