Apricot and Pecan Scrummies

Finely chop the apricots

Melt the sugar, butter and golden syrup together

Oats, flour, cinammon and salt

Mix in the apricots

Lightly toast……….

…and finely chop

The final mixture

…squash flat with your fingers

Crisp and chewy at the same time!

September spiders

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The morning breeze is whispering of autumn. I adore the change of seasons in the UK. The landscape completely changes and so does the food we eat. The evenings are drawing in and the spiders are EVERYWHERE! Living on the edge of woodland means that we have an incredible number of them and in September they all seem to start coming indoors. The cobwebs adorn every window ledge and the corner of every room – seemingly in the blink of an eye- the length of time it takes to make a batch of these Scrummies anyway.

It may seem that I am on a bit of an oat and apricot crusade ( Sausage Rolls with Apricots and Honey and Oatmeal and Raisin Cookies). It’s not intentional but they are both wonderful ingredients this time of year.

I have just had an amazing woodland walk with Mango and returned to a cup of tea and 2 of these cookies.

This recipe was inspired by Delia Smiths recipe for “Apricot and Nut Crunchies” in the book “The Delia Collection- Baking”.

Ingredients

100 g unsalted butter

75 g demerara sugar

1 tbsp golden syrup

100 g self raising flour

1 tsp ground cinnamon

0.5 tsp salt

100 g porridge oats

100 g dried apricots, finely chopped

20 g pecan nuts, chopped

Tin

2 baking sheets lined with baking parchment/ unlined stoneware

Oven

Pre-heat the oven to 170 C (150- 160 C Fan)/ Gas Mark 3

Method

1. Place the pecan nuts on a baking sheet in the oven and toast them like this for approximately 5 minutes. Watch them closely as they will go from toasted to burnt very quickly. Chop.

2. Place the sugar, butter and golden syrup in a small saucepan. Stir over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved.

3. Place the flour, oats, cinnamon and salt into a bowl and stir. Then stir in the chopped apricots. Use your fingers in a gentle “rubbing in” motion to make sure that the apricots are separate and not clumped together.

4. Pour the sugar/ syrup/ butter mixture onto the dry ingredients and mix to a sticky dough.

5. With your hands, make walnut sized balls with the dough and place onto the baking sheets with plenty of space between them. Squash each one with your hands to flatten them until they are quite flat.

6. Sprinkle the chopped pecans on the top of each cookie, pressing them into the mixture slightly.

7. Bake in the oven for 12- 14 minutes until they are slightly golden.

8. Leave to cool for 5 minutes before using a knife to gently transfer them to a cooling rack to cool completely.