Baking for Beginners: Oat and Strawberry Cookies

These cookies are a little bit of a mish mash of recipes. I've been making oat and raisin cookies from a childhood recipe for years and they're something of a Sluttery staple. They're so easy to make and you can knock them up in about ten minutes. On a recent trip to Gail's Bakery, I tried their oat and cranberry cookies and got inspired to tweak my recipe and give it a bit of an update. I used strawberries instead of cranberries and the end result is a huge pile of moreish cookies that you won't want to share with anyone. Oh, and the brilliant chameleon plate? That's £16 from Anthropologie.

Oat and Strawberry Cookies (makes about 15)
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Baking time: 15 minutes

You'll need:

• 50g butter at room temperature
• 125g caster sugar
• 1 egg
• 50g plain flour
• 1/2tsp salt
• 1/2tsp baking powder
• 125g porridge oats
• 125g dried strawberries. You could use also cranberries. Apricots would also taste great using honey instead of maple syrup.
• 50g pecans, broken up into small pieces
• Drizzle of maple syrup (you can use golden syrup or honey, but pecans and maple are a very happy marriage)

Make it!

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C or gas mark 4 and lightly grease two baking trays.
2. Cream together the butter and sugar until the mixture becomes fluffy.
3. Beat the egg into your fluffy mixture.
4. Sieve the flour, salt and baking powder, and mix into everything else.
5. Add the oats, dried fruit and pecans and then mix everything together really well. 
6. Drizzle in the maple syrup and stir into everything.
7. Spoon the mixture onto the trays, flattening slightly with a spoon. I tend to use a tablespoon but if you want giant cookies then make sure you alter the cooking time accordingly.
8. Bake for about 15 minutes until they're golden brown. 
9. Leave to cool slightly on a wire cooling rack and then serve with a huge mug of tea. Reptile crockery optional.