Oat, Date + Hazelnut Cookies

I had a hankering for oat cookies yesterday. I love hazelnuts in a cookie and always oats - and since I am meant to be eating medjool dates at the moment in the homestretch of my pregnancy (seemingly good for labour..), I designed a cookie recipe to include all three ingredients. I used a BBC oat and raisin recipe as my starting point. I’m not a fan of using eggs in biscuit recipes (I don’t see the need) and so I left this out, loved the idea of grated apple, wasn’t feeling cinnamon (maybe in winter), swapped dates for raisins, did a brown sugar and maple syrup mix for the sweetness, and added some vanilla extract. Here’s my recipe below. It makes a batch of about 12 medium sized cookies. I am really enjoying them - and have had two already this morning!         

Ingredients:

50g butter 

1.5 tbsp maple syrup

25g brown sugar 

1apple, unpeeled and grated

50g medjool dates, chopped small

50g oats 

50g flour

40g hazelnut, chopped into chunks

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. 

Line a baking tray with some parchment paper. 

Melt the butter in a saucepan, then add the syrup and brown sugar. Stir in the apple and vanilla essence. Cook for about 5 mins until the apple softens. 

In a large bowl, mix the oats, flour and hazelnuts. Add the chopped dates, then pour in the wet mixture from the saucepan. Mix all ingredients together well.  

Scoop about 12 heaped dessert spoons of the mixture onto the baking tray, spacing each one generously apart. Press down each one with the back of the spoon.

Bake for about 20 mins until nicely golden. Allow cookies to cool on a wire rack to ensure a biscuity crunch. 

Store in an airtight container if you have leftovers!