Life, Art, Tea, Food and Alaska

So in light of my last blog, I decided to vegan-ize one of my favorite tea cookie recipes 'Lemon Oatmeal Crisps' which I found in?The New Tea Book?by Sara Perry. I've had this book for years and it's really the book that got me more interested in tea. So here is what I consider to be one of the best recipes I've ever encountered.

Lemon oatmeal crisps (or heaven in a cookie)
Ingredients:
-1/2 cup unbleached or bleached all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
-1/4 teaspoon salt
-1/2 cup (1stick) unsalted butter OR vegan butter if you got it/want to use it
-1/2 cup sugar
-1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
-1/2 teaspoon minced lemon zest (lemon peel for you non cooking term savy folks)
-3/4 cup old-fashioned rolled oats

Direction time!

1)?PREHEAT YOUR OVEN! TO 350 DEGREES?FAHRENHEIT! (this is in bold and computer shouting because if you're like me, you forget what the temp. needs to be at and do this after you've mixed everything)

2) Mix your flour, baking soda a salt in a very small bowl (or a measuring cup if you lack small bowls)

3) In a big bowl cream together the butter and sugar until it's light and fluffy..do this on medium speed for?10?minutes (if you're using vegan butter you only need to do this for about 5 minutes). And yes that really says ten minutes, but it ensures the butter and sugar blend well together and become like a dense whipped cream that gives the cookies a very light crunch, yeah so do it right if you want amazing cookies.

4)Add in the zest and extract, blend that in. Now beat in the flour on a low speed, and then the oats. (it's a soft dough so don't worry if you think it's to squishy)

5)Time to make that dough into cookie shapes, do this by dropping rounded teaspoon fulls (over flowing teaspoons of dough) onto an ungreased cookie sheet, or a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. These cookies spread out A LOT so make sure you leave at least 1 1/2 inches between your dough mounds.

If you are using butter bake these guys for 12-14 minutes until they are lightly golden, if you are using vegan butter bake them for 9-11 minutes. When they're done let them cool for a bit before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely. Store these babies in an airtight container if you don't eat them all in one go. Depending on your rounded teaspoon accuracy this recipe makes 2-3 dozen crispy cookies.

Pro tips:

You can use 1/4 teaspoon almond extract and 1/2 cup finely chopped almonds instead of or in addition to the lemon extract and lemon peel.

Or you can add 1/2 cup white chocolate chips and 1/2 cup coarsely chopped macadamia nuts to the batter. Carry on with the rest of the instructions.

Source: http://teacreations.blogspot.com/2013/03/these-are-cookies-i-had-them-with-some.html

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