Lose Some, Gain Some and Muesli Cookies

Its must have been a long while since I exercised regularly. For the past two weeks while I was away for Reservist training, I found it to be especially physically exhausting. Perhaps age is fast catching up on me too. Whichever it is, it just signifies that it is time for me to hit the running track and go for laps in the pool.

When I got back home after training was over, I got a rude shock. My laptop went down. What a nice timing it had to be.... My baking pics were all gone, including pics for two backlogs - raisin oatmeal cookies and a cookies and cream cake, along with other files that were in my hard disk. My windows vista even got downgraded to windows XP as the recovery disk was one for windows XP.

On a positive note, my friend got me a stand mixer at a real steal - a 1150W 5L capacity beater (lesser known brand), all for only 50 bucks. Well, I guess sometimes you lose some but you gain some in return. I am going to use it for bread making and big-batch baking. The two extra mixing bowls could come in handy too.

I missed baking a great deal now that I have endured two bake-less weeks. For a start, I tweaked the raisin oatmeal recipe and used raisins + Dorset Cereals (low sugar content, with natural sweetness from dried fruits) instead to churn out a batch of Muesli Cookies. The great thing about using Dorset Cereals is that they offer a wide variety of dried fruits and nuts all mixed together. And how did it turned out? Chunky, oaty-nutty-fruity cookies which were cereals-ly good! 

Muesli Cookies (recipe adapted from the Art & Soul of Baking by Cindy Mushet) 
Serving size: 40 cookies
Taste and texture: Chunky, nutty, fruity. 
Equipment and materials: 

• Stand electric beater/ handheld electric beater or wooden spoon
• Flour sieve
• Measuring spoon set
• Spatula
• Mixing bowls
• Wire rack
• Baking trays/ cookie sheets
• Baking / parchment paper

Ingredients:

• 120g unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
• 80g brown sugar
• 35g castor sugar
• 1 egg, lightly beaten (60g with shell)
• 150g plain flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 190g muesli (I used Dorset Cereals)
• 75g raisins

Making the Cookies:

Mixing dry ingredients - Sift plain flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a large mixing bowl. Whisk with a balloon whisk to distribute them evenly.  

Cream butter - Beat the butter and both sugars on medium speed for 2 minutes until butter mixture is fluffy. The butter need not be as well-creamed as that for making cakes.

Making the cookie dough - Stir in the egg into the creamed butter and mix on medium low speed until combined. Next, stir in flour mixture and beat on low speed to combine butter-egg mixture and flour briefly. Stop once the dough starts to comes together. Scrape and fold in any stray flour with a spatula. Lastly, fold in the  muesli and raisins. 

Baking the cookies - Scoop leveled tablespoons of dough onto baking trays/sheets lined with baking paper, leaving 1.5 inch between each cookie dough. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C and bake for 12-18 minutes. Once done, the cookies should be firm to the touch and will firm up further upon cooling. Leave cookies to cool completely on a wire rack before storing in air-tight containers.

Notes:

1. Bake cookies for 12 minutes for softer cookies or 18 minutes for firmer cookies. 
2. cookies do not spread much since there is a great amount of oats, nuts and dried fruits. 
3. Use 140g rolled oats and 100g raisins for raisin oatmeal cookies. 

Notice:

If you wish to post the recipe and instructions online, please give due credit and do re-phrase the instructions. I have taken quite a bit of effort to construct, edit and type them out. Thank you =]