Thursday, November 11, 2010

Cookies with a Kick

These cookies were almost a case of a good idea gone horribly, horribly bad. Why, you ask? Well, it began with a recipe for oatmeal raisin cookies and a jar of jelly.


If you can't read the label, that would be Okanagan wine jelly I'm holding. What's wrong with that?? Absolutely nothing... that is unless you don't pay attention to the particular kind of wine jelly and - like me - use a grape wine jelly with rosemary flavouring added to it. And you don't notice until the first batch of dough is all nicely mixed up with a gazillion other ingredients and scooped out onto the sheets, ready for the oven.

But what did I do once that oh-so-unique woodsy scent of rosemary reached the "duh" centre of my brain? Did I scrap the batch and start again? Well... no. I'm too lazy stubborn for that. Besides, the boozy nature of the spread, the exotic spicing and buttery goodness of the base, and the raisin, apricot and crushed granola bar additions permeated the cookies far more than that little hint of herbage. And I wasn't about to let a mere plant get in the way of cookies... no siree. So into the oven they went - jammy batter and all.

And you know what? They were awesome. None of my taste testers even mentioned something savoury about the biscuits, and only a handful could peg the slight alcoholic tang from the Okanagan wine. The one thing all of them said was that they were unlike any other oatmeal-raisin cookie out there, but in a good way. I suppose if you add good wine to almost anything it's hard to go wrong!

Zingy Oatmeal and Jelly Cookies
Makes 24
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup spelt flour
1 1/4 cups rolled oats
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp Chinese 5-spice
3 tbsp softened butter
2 1/2 tbsp shortening
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup wine jelly (or you can use grape jam with a touch of red wine mixed in!)
grated zest of 1 orange
1 tbsp fresh-grated ginger
3/4 cup raisins
1/2 cup diced, dried apricots
2 pkg (4 bars) Nature Valley "Oats 'n Dark Chocolate" Crunchy Granola Bars, coarsley crushed
  1. Preheat oven to 350°F and line two cookie sheets with parchment or silicone.
  2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flours, oats, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and 5-spice. Set aside.
  3. In another bowl, beat together the butter, shortening and sugars. Add egg and vanilla, beating until smooth.
  4. In a small bowl, stir together jam, orange zest and ginger. Set aside.
  5. Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture and mix until almost combined.
  6. Add the jam mixture, raisins, apricots and granola bar pieces and fold in.
  7. Drop generously portioned scoops of batter 1 1/2 - 2” apart.
  8. Bake for 17 minutes.
  9. Cool completely on the sheets for crispy cookies, or transfer to racks after 5 minutes for slightly chewier ones.
Amount Per Serving
Calories: 131.3
Total Fat: 4.0 g
Cholesterol: 13.4 mg
Sodium: 70.8 mg
Total Carbs: 24.1 g
Dietary Fiber: 1.5 g
Protein: 2.1 g

2 comments :

  1. Fun experiment, sounds delicious!

    ReplyDelete
  2. im so glad they tasted good! they sure look YUMMY!!! <3

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for the feedback!