On a recent trip to Vancouver, our friend Nancy brought me some hazelnut butter from a women’s group in Oregon. It looked delicious and since I love hazelnuts, I was eager to try it. I liked it but soon defaulted to my usual peanut butter – maybe it has more salt to suit my taste. In any case, I was looking for a place to use the hazelnut butter. In addition to that, I had recently discovered a large unopened bag of quick oats. Not sure why I ever bought them but since I don’t typically eat oatmeal porridge, I knew I’d have to find some other use for them.
I did some online research and discovered all sorts of peanut butter cookie recipes but either they wanted no oats, whole oats, shortening or margarine and none of them suited my purpose. I finally happened upon a recipe that used quick oats and allowed me to use pure butter. The recipe was for 48 cookies – even with freezing them, that’s a lot for someone living alone. I cut the recipe in half to preserve my stock of butter and eggs.
So, is this creative? I think so. After all, I replaced the peanut butter and got a delicious product. Here is the recipe for 24 cookies.
Ingredients:
1/2 c. soft butter (or margarine if you insist)
1/2 c. packed brown sugar
3/8 c. white sugar
1/2 c. nut butter of your choice
3/4 c. all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. quick oats
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350F or 175C
2. In a large bowl, cream together butter, brown sugar, white sugar and nut butter until smooth. Beat in the egg until well blended. I used my Braun for simplicity.
3. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and salt and quick oats.
4. Stir dry ingredients into the butter mixture.
5. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto an un-greased baking sheet I tried to fit them all onto one large baking sheet but that was a mistake as they ran into each other. I got exactly 23 cookies from my recipe.
6. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven or until just light brown.
Optional Extras:
I didn’t try any of these in this recipe – it’s quite perfect as it is. However you could add some chocolate chips or chopped chunks of chocolate, some nuts or even raisins. If adding raisins, I’d soak them for a short while first.