After spending a month with us, it was time for my Mum to go back home. She left early on Tuesday morning, and was still travelling yesterday, as though she was in Moscow on Tuesday, it takes another 22 hours by train to get to my hometown.
Every time she leaves, we say Good byes with a heavy heart. With her health issues and me being a "prisoner of Zenda" - not being able to travel far due to the elder son's mental health problems, we never know if we'll see each other again.
To cheer up myself and treat my boys, I was baking maple oat cookies.
After a recent debacle with Flora, I'm on the lookout for a new margarine for baking cookies with. While I prefer a real butter when I bake cakes, I used to add either Flora or Stork as an ingredient in cookies, as they help to keep the shape.
After Flora has antagonised the Mumsnet members, I am now trying to find an alternative. I'm not a very active Mumsnetter, more of a reader than a contributor, and resent the fact that all members were insulted en masse. So, it's a good bye from me, good bye, Flora.
If you know of a decent alternative which is good for baking cookies, please let me know.
In this recipe I used a Baking block by Sainsbury's. It's the first time I used it, and can't say that I'm impressed. The cookies did spread quite a bit and lost their pattern. This means, I'm still on the lookout for the perfect margarine.
Maple oat cookies (makes 18 cookies)
Ingredients:
100g demerara sugar
120g margarine
1 medium egg
60ml maple syrup
50g oats
180+ g self-raising flour
1tsp baking powder
a pinch of sea salt
Cream the sugar with margarine, beat in one egg, add the maple syrup, oats, flour and baking powder as well as a pinch of sea salt. The cookie dough will be quite soft and sticky.
Dust hands with flour and pinch walnut-sized balls of dough, roll between your hands, then flatten and put on the tray, lined with a baking parchment paper or baking silicone sheet.
Bake for about 13-14 minutes. The cookies will be slightly golden and very soft.
Let them cool a bit before lifting off the tray, they are fragile at this stage and will break easily.
If you prefer crispy cookies, let them bake for a couple of minutes longer.
These are lovely chewy cookies, perfect with a cup of tea or coffee. My boys loved them.
The maple syrup adds a distinct aroma and flavour to the bakes.
These look delicious - I'd happily tuck into one right now ! You intrigued me with the mumsnet comment so I went to investigate - this had all gone completely over my head, but I only tend to read their AIBU bit ! And big hugs for you all after your mum's departure. Sounds like an epic trip home for her - wow ! xxx
ReplyDeleteThank you, Cheryl, Mum's trip is epic, but at the same time not as bad as before, when she used to travel by coach from Moscow for 3 days, that was utterly crazy.
DeleteThe cookies look great. I'm sorry to hear that your mother might not be able to come to visit you next year. I hope she will be able to.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea about the issues between Mumsnet and Flora, so I searched online before commeting. I can understand their perspectives. A company can pick the best platforms to represent them, and Mumsnet doesn't come out too good in the process. At the same time, they are on Facebook, which is not exactly committed to solving out their hate speech and so on.
For me, the most important thing in a margarine is where the palm oil is sourced from and, in this case, Flora is doing great. I'm using Vitalife, which is made with sustainable palm oil. Have you tried Vitalife?
Thank you, Anca, I think I've tried Vitalife before, but not with baking. Will buy a pack and try to bake cookies with it.
DeleteAs for the Flora, the problem I have with them is that Musmnet is a huge forum, with hundreds of thousands of members, they are not a homogeneous mass, so surely there are different voices present. Obviously I couldn't read every thread, so cannot comment on everything that's being said. From what I read they have raised some very valid points regarding the erosion of the women's rights and very dangerous practices for children. A small but extremely powerful lobby doesn't like anyone questioning anything, and put pressure on Flora, and Flora was only to happy to oblige as they want to present themselves as woke.
From what I read, Flora stopped working with Mumsnet over transphobic content, allowed on their forum. This is why I said Mumsnet doesn't come out good in this discussion.
DeleteI'm all for free speech and for very little moderation in general. This way, everybody can decide who they want to associate with/work with.