These White Chocolate, Raspberry, and Pistachio Oat Cookies can be easily thrown together after a quick trip to the corner shop and the deep freeze…
Somewhat controversially, I am not a huge fan of strawberries – much preferring raspberries instead. Don’t get me wrong… we all have memories of childhood summers where strawberries were juicy and packed full of flavour. Unfortunately, the varieties we buy these days (and this is where I start to sound ancient) just don’t measure up to memory.
I find that commercially sold strawberries are either under or over-ripe and tend to be flavourless and watery. The only exceptions to this universal truth are the ones you can harvest at home or at a pick-your-own farmfrom late April through to August.
Any hope to extend the season throughout the darker months is cancelled out when you consider that strawberries do not freeze at all well. The ice crystals that form in the fruit during deep freeze turns once plumptious berries to mush. Raspberries, on the other hand are a bit more reliable…
Strawberry flavour may have seemingly diluted over the years, yet the humble raspberry reigns supreme. Unlike their Strawb-cousin, raspberries thrive once frozen. Yes, they suffer the fate of ice crystal mushing, but this seems to accentuate their berry flavour and taste rather than detract from it. It is for this reason that you will always find bags of frozen rasps in my freezer; ready to deploy in trifles, quick jams for breakfast pancakes, muffins and this cookie recipe…
My White Chocolate, Raspberry, and Pistachio Oat Cookies are quick to throw together – using ingredients I always have at home or can easily be acquired from our village shop. The result is a soft, sweet cookie which all the family will love.
Oaty biscuits always feel like a treat for me; perhaps because of memories of my mother’s treacly flapjack that she would make when I was younger. I use normal porridge oats which I quickly blitz to a powder in a coffee grinder, however you can skip this stage by using the equivalent weight of Ready-Brek or the supermarket-own-label equivalent – just make sure it is sugar free. The oats help to absorb any juices released from the thawing raspberries – trapping all flavour within these biscuits. This does make for a very firm, stiff dough which will yield around 30 delicious biscuits when baked – so stiff in fact that while you can make these by hand, you will find it infinitely easier to mix using a stand mixer for the bulk of the mixing. Either way, these cookies are delicious – so much so that you will find yourself making another batch very soon afterwards…
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White Chocolate, Raspberry, and Pistachio Oat Cookies
- Prep Time: 10 Minutes
- Cook Time: 15 Minutes
- Total Time: 25 minutes
- Yield: 28 1x
Ingredients
- 200g unsalted butter
- 150g granulated sugar
- 150g light muscovado sugar
- 200g finely milled porridge oats (or Ready-Brek like cereal)
- 200g plain flour
- 2tsp vanilla extract
- 60g Unsalted Pistachios
- 200g White Chocolate – broken into chunks
- 200g frozen raspberries
- 2 eggs
- Pinch of Salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 and line two baking sheets with greaseproof paper.
- Pop the butter, light muscovado sugar and granulated sugar into a bowl. I always sift my light muscovado sugar when I add it to recipes as it does have a tendency to clump together. Cream the butter and sugars together until soft and light. Beat in the eggs one at a time, alongside the vanilla extract.
- Roughly chop the pistachios until you have irregular sized rubble. Break the white chocolate into chunks about the size of a finger nail and through all into the butter-sugar mix. Stir together to evenly distribute.
- Mill 200g of porridge oats in a spice/coffee mill to resemble ground almonds– or use 200g of a Ready-Brek like cereal. Sift this over the buttery mix with 1tsp of baking powder and the plain flour. Stir thoroughly to combine – forming a stiff dough in the process. Finally, tip in the frozen raspberries – slowly stirring them through the dough to evenly distribute. It doesn’t matter if some blend into the dough – but do try and keep some whole berries if you can to provide a juicy burst to the finished cookies.
- Spoon out walnut-sized balls of the dough and roll with the palms of your hands before placing on the prepared baking sheets. The cookies will spread during cooking so leave a gap between the balls. Press down of the top of each cookie ball with the back of a teaspoon before popping in the oven to bake for around 15 minutes.
- When the cooking time is up, remove the trays from the oven and allow to cool slightly on the side for about 5 minutes. After this time, carefully lift each cookie off the trays and place on a rack to fully cool down.
- Store the finished cookies in an airtight tin.
- Category: Baking, Cookies, Biscuits
- Cuisine: British
Keywords: Baking, Cookies, Biscuits, Treats
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