Easy Home-grown Raspberry Oatmeal Cookie Slices by My 13 YO Daughter

Nothing tastes as good as home grown produce! This is something we make every year using raspberries from our raspberry patch in our front yard - when we can get to them before the birds and the neighbours kids do! We don't mind though, first come first served.

I imagine it would work well with any berries really, but since we have our own fruit, why not use them?

They are soft and crumbly, and highly addictive!

They are at their best a day or two after being baked. These are my single favourite home baked thing in the world, ever. Soft, crumbly, moreish, not too sweet, fruity... Omnomnomnomnom!

This was the last batch my eldest daughter made. I didn't get to taste these ones though...

We gave the batch away though to say thank you to the maternity staff at our local hospital, because we were celebrating the safe birth of our baby daughter! WOOHOO!!! Best news EVER!

The sacrifice was big, but worth it.. Just... Hahaha!

Supplies

You will need...

Some tropical fish and a raspberry patch (OK, these aren't strictly necessary, it's just that we pour our tank water on the raspberry patch when we do water changes, which makes our raspberries grow like crazy!).

For the cookie slices:

½ cup / 100g packed-down light brown sugar

1 cup / 130g plain flour

¼ teaspoon baking soda

A pinch of salt

1 cup / 90g rolled oats

½ cup / 120g of softened butter

¾ cup / 250g raspberry jam (seedless or not, your choice!)

For the jam:

500g raspberries (or blackberries, or whatever fruit you want to try!)

1¼cups / 250g sugar - I used caster sugar because that is what I had, but preserve sugar or whatever will do.

NOTE: This is half the sugar you would normally put in jam, but I prefer the raspberry to be sharper rather than too sweet. Doing it this way also means that the jam flows nicely and doesn't ever quite set. Trust me, give it a go!

Juice of ½ lemon

You will make more jam than you need here, but that's OK, the jam is delicious! If I were you, I'd aim for using at least 1kg of fruit so you have lots of jam left over!

Step 1: We're Jammin'!

Before you start anything ,sterilise a jam jar or two to have on stand by, and put a plate in the freezer.

You'll need:

• A large glass bowl
• A sieve
• A wooden spoon
• A preserving pan (or any deep, wide, large pan really)

1) Wash your raspberries with cold water

2) Put half the raspberries into the preserving pan

3) Add the lemon juice

4) Mash the raspberries into a pulp over a medium-low heat with a potato masher or other suitable utensil

5) Leave to cook for five minutes

6) Tip the cooked berries into the sieve over the bowl, drain off the juice and mash the pulp through with the back of the wooden spoon until you are left with just the seeds in the sieve. Save the the seeds to feed to the birds!

7) Tip the juice and pulp back into the pan, and stir in the sugar.

8) Heat gently, and add the remaining raspberries whole

9) Bring to the boil slowly, and then heat very fast and hard for five minutes

10) Get your plate out of the freezer, and drip a drop of jam onto it and push your finger through it. It should wrinkle up a little and look like, well, jam. If it doesn't, heat hard for another couple of minutes. Don't worry too much if you never quite get there, the oven will finish it off.

There will look like there is a scum on the top of the surface of the jam as it cools. Just stir this back in.

As the jam cools, pour it into your jars keeping 250 grams or so back for your slices, and seal. You can keep it for up to a year, but note that the colour will darken a little as it ages.
Once opened, keep in the fridge.

OR ALTERNATIVELY

1) Buy some jam.

Step 2: Get Baking!

Wait until your fresh jam has cooled enough to handle (or use jam you made months ago!)

Preheat your oven to 175*C / 350*F

Grease a deep baking tray, about an 8" pan is the right size, and line it with baking paper

Step 3:

Mix together your sugar, flour, baking powder, the salt, and the rolled oats (for best results, sieve your flour)

Step 4:

Rub in the butter using your hands or a food processor to form a crumb mixture (don't over work it though!)

Step 5:

Press about 2/3 of the mixture into the bottom of the baking tray nice and evenly, it should stick together loosely

Step 6:

Spread the jam generously to within about 1/4 inch or so of the edge.

Step 7:

Crumble the remaining mixture over the top, and lightly press it into the jam, but not too hard. Let the jam stick it down.

Step 8:

Bake for 35-40 minutes until lightly browned on top.

Wait for it to cool in the tray, lift out very carefully, and cut into squares.

Enjoy!!

Try playing around with the quantities too. Doubling up on the butter makes for a less crumbly, more biscuit (cookie) like result. More jam is, well, better in my opinion. I prefer less sugar, but adding a little more to either the crumble or the jam will make a sweeter, stickier end result. You may have noticed my daughter doubled up on the butter this time from the original recipe. Experiment and let me know how you did it!