Stirring it up:

Baking up a wee taste of Scotland in your kitchen is quick and simple. This recipe for Scottish Oatcakes is inspired by a recipe from the BBC’s Good Food collection of recipes. The end result is somewhat different from store bought Oatcakes or my earlier Oatcake recipe as this includes maple syrup and much less sugar which makes it taste like a bit of a cross between a cracker and a cookie.

Makes: about 2 dozen pieces depending on how they are cut

Oven: preheat to 190°C (375°F)

Bake: 20-30 minutes

Ingredients:

•  225 g. old fashioned oats (quick cooking oats not recommended) and definitely not instant oats!)
• 60 g. whole wheat flour (King Arthur Flour is my choice)
• ½ t. baking soda
• 60 g. butter
• 1 t. salt
• 2T. maple syrup (after all, I am in Vermont!)
• 60 – 90 ml very hot water (not boiling) or more to make a dough which comes together
• sometimes I add a small measure of spices or herbs.
• Flour for the work surface

Method:

• Set oven to 190°C (375°F)
• Mix together oats, flour, salt, and baking soda.
• Incorporate the butter with a pastry blender, two knives or rub together with you fingers until resembles large breadcrumbs.
• Add the maple syrup and the very hot water a small amount at a time until you have a thick dough. Add more water if needed. I find stirring with a fork works well.
• Flour the working surface.
• Roll dough to about ½ cm thick (1/4”)
• Cut dough with round cookie cutter or cut into squares with a sharp knife (this is what I do).
• Place on parchment lined jelly roll pan. Pieces can be fairly close to one another as they don’t expand much.
• Bake 20-30 minutes, should be golden brown.

Eat warm or cold with butter and jam, marmalade, honey, cheese or just about anything you like.

Dishing it out:

Dating back to at least Roman times, Scottish soldiers would carry a sack of oats and a griddle with them. The oats were moistened and shaped then fried, thus Oatcakes.  Filling, though pretty dry and tasteless I should imagine.

On my first trip to Scotland I discovered that oatcakes were a staple on the breakfast table, presented along with cheese and ham in a Ploughman’s Lunch at noon and sometimes served along with butter and jam with a cuppa’ for a late afternoon snack. Dry, crunchy, fairly bland, and not at all like a cake, they are marvelous with additions such as listed above. As noted in ‘Stirring it up’, this recipe is somewhat different from store bought Oatcakes as it incorporates maple syrup which makes it taste like a bit like a cross between a cracker and a cookie. Enjoy!