bakeathon on labour day- oatmeal sandwich cookie and craisin, white choc and coconut slice

Today was a public holiday in sydney so i decided to take a day off from study and bake! With the help of my trusty cousins- Amy and Linh we baked oatmeal sandwich biscuits with a cream cheese frosting and craisin, coconut, white chocolate slice (it is similar to a brownie). The recipes we used were modified from annies-eats.com (a US blogger who i hope to be like one day, she is already a doctor and has a successful food blog). The oatmeal sandwich cookie was inspired by buppa's bakehouse's credit crunch cookie which is hands down my favourite cookie, please go to this bakehouse in newtown (king st) it is amazing. They specialise in homestyle american treats. Their credit crunch cookie is still better but mine are still delicious! here is the recipe

Oatmeal sandwich cookie with cream cheese frosting

ingredients

250g butter (cut up into cubes)

1 and 1/2 cups brown sugar

2 eggs

dash of vanilla essence

1 and 3/4 cups of plain flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

pinch of salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

2 cups rolled oats

1/2 cup crushed walnuts

1/2 cup white choc bits

Method:

Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius. Beat together butter, sugar till creamy. Then add eggs and vanilla essence and beat till smooth. In another bowl sift flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add the dry ingredients to butter mixture and mix till combined. Fold in rolled oats, walnuts and white choc bits. Use your hands to mix until well combined, roll into balls and press onto baking paper lined baking tray. Balls should be about the size of a golf ball (like a meatball), make sure there is plenty of room on the baking tray since they will melt down and spread out, if they are too close together they will become one big biscuit. Bake for 8-10 minutes, allow to cool before you move them as they will crack. If you want they chewier bake them for less time, if you want harder biscuits bake them for longer, for the sandwich cookies i think they should be baked for 10 minutes, this makes it easier to sandwich them.

Cream cheese frosting: this is to go between the cookies to make the sandwich

In a food processor, blend 250g cream cheese (like Philadelphia cheese) until smooth, add 1 bag of icing sugar (500g), and blend well, add a dash of lemon juice (to your liking) and process it all in the food processor till smooth. Most recipes will tell you to sift the icing sugar and you probably should but i'm lazy and hate sifting so i just added it straight from the bag, it was still smooth (maybe beginners luck!).

Once the cookies have cooled spread the cream cheese frosting and sandwich the cookies.

I hope you try these and let me know how i can improve on them but i really love them, they are the closest thing to the real buppa's bakehouse credit crunch cookie!

Craisin, white choc and coconut slice

Ingredients:

1 cup plain flour

pinch of salt

8 tablespoons of melted butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg

dash vanilla essence

1 cup shredded coconut

1/2 cup craisins

1/2 cup white choc bits

Method:

Preheat oven to 160 degrees celcius. Line a baking tin with baking paper.

In a large bowl combine combine the flour and salt. In another bowl beat sugar with melted butter till mixed then add egg and beat till lighter in colour and smooth. Add the vanilla essence and mix. Add the flour mix to the butter mix and stir to combine. Add the coconut, craisins and white chocolate bits and mix till combined. Transfer to the baking pan and bake for 15-20 minutes, do not over bake, the mix will still feel soft to touch but maybe golden in colour.

Once it's cooled drizzle with melted white choc and cut into slices.

This recipe is modified from annies eats under the chewy coconut chocolate chunk blondies, but we made it with white choc and added craisins. Thanks annie!

All in all today was a successful day of baking which ended with a movie. We rented 'the quiet' possibly the worse movie ever, we should have known when we rented it, even the rental shop owner said he'd never heard of this movie before! There is a reason, it was crap! But the cookies and slice made the movie durable. Enjoy, xoxo

ps the dress i'm wearing is my new marc by marc jacobs emi dress in smoky amethyst from saks fifth ave (they post internationally!), it was inspired by 500 days of summer. My favourite colour is now blue and the eyelet lace is beautiful in this dress. It is so simple but perfect for baking and hospital days. I loved the frill neckline and the little puffy sleeves. The other picture is zooey deschanel from 500 days of summer, the inspiration for this dress.