Very Easy Oaty Biscuit Recipe

I'm not sure what's going on but just lately I've been craving food with crunch. It's not the flavour of things I've been thinking about but the texture. I'm sure this has some deep psychological reason but there seemed only one thing to do: bake some biscuits. I'm not talking about soft crumbly cookies or biscuits containing a buttercream centre but an old-fashioned, honest-to-goodness crunchy biscuit.

I had a look in my various cookbooks but all of the recipes seemed a bit fancy schmancy (I toyed with a biscotti for some full-on crunch but didn't have enough nuts to make them worthwhile) so I looked around on the internet. I found this recipe on the Good Housekeeping site (lots of other scrummy sounding biscuits on there too), messed around with it a little bit and this is what I made.

Very Easy Oaty Biscuits - with optional chocolate drizzle (makes about 16)

125g self-raising flour
125g porridge (rolled) oats

125g light brown soft sugar
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
125g butter
1 tbsp golden syrup
50g milk or plain chocolate (optional but delicious)

• Preheat the oven to 160ºC fan/180ºC/350ºF/gas mark 4
• In a large bowl mix together all the dry ingredients (flour, oats, sugar and bicarb)
• In a small saucepan melt the butter and golden syrup 
• Add the butter mixture to the dry mixture and stir until well combined
• Using your hands form the mixture into about 16 balls and place on two greased or lined baking sheets. Make sure not to overcrowd them
• Use the back of your spoon to flatten the balls slightly (you will probably need to use your hands a bit here too as the mixture is quite crumbly)
• Bake for 16-18 minutes or until golden brown
• Leave the biscuits to cool in the tin for at least 3 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack
• If you want to add the chocolate drizzle (and why wouldn't you?), wait until the biscuits are completely cooled then melt the chocolate either in a bowl over a pan of simmering water or make it even easier by slowly melting in the microwave. I'd never actually done this before but in an attempt to save washing up I just broke the chocolate into a bowl and microwaved in 20 sec bursts until it was melted. Then using your spoon just drizzle the chocolate over the biscuits (remember to put something underneath the cooling rack to save your counter top)

And that's it! These really are incredibly easy and have suddenly become one of my favourite biscuits ever. They have a great crunch and are much more full of flavour than their humble ingredients would suggest; they're even delicious without the chocolate.

If kept in an airtight container the biscuits will keep for around a week. Yeah right.