Putties (the family comes to stay from WA)

I had a new helper in the kitchen today. My nephew came to visit from country Western Australia, and since we were the only two up at the crack of dawn, we cooked together. Today’s recipe was “Putties”.  I have never heard of these biscuits before, and an internet search brought up nothing, other than Putties as an alternative spelling of patties.

So, Master D and I had a good go at the recipe. It’s a very dry mix, and as we made the Putties, we ended up with the almonds left over in the bottom of the mixing bowl. It was also almost impossible to cream the butter and treacle as per the recipe.

I decided to have another go, this time changing the recipe to make it quicker and easier. So, I melted the butter, and just popped a single whole almond on the top of each biscuit. The verdict – good, but inferior to the original. Also a little overcooked, as melting the butter changed the cooking time a bit.

So a third try with chopped almonds AND melted butter proved that there are definitely too many almonds for an amateur like me.  So that meant take 4 (luckily these bikkies are absolutely delicious) with only half a cup of chopped almonds. These stayed together better, so here is the recipe. These are excellent by the way. We’ve made our way through mountains of them, and aren’t sick of them yet.

2 cups rolled oats

3/4 cup plain flour

1/2 cup sugar

125g butter

2 tsp treacle

1/2 tsp bicarb soda

2 tbsp boiling water

1/2 cup chopped almonds

Preheat oven to 150°C. Mix the oats, flour and sugar in a bowl. Melt the butter. Add the treacle to the butter. Dissolve the bicarb soda in the boiling water. Add the butter mix and the bicarb mix to the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Stir through the chopped nuts. Shape into balls, about 2 teaspoons of mixture to a ball. Makes about 25. Carefully flatten them a little with a fork, and bake for 20 minutes. Cool on the tray for about 5 minutes, and then on a rack. Quick, easy and delicious.