Scottish Oatcakes from Molly MacRae #recipe @MysteryMacRae

 

Oatcakes and a piece of good cheese – Mm-mm! I’m looking forward to March 1^st, when Argyles and Arsenic hits bookstores and libraries, so my next several contributions to the MLK kitchen will be Scottish recipes.

Oatcakes are a traditional Scottish cracker. They’re great on their own or served with salted butter, cheese, pate, smoked salmon, etc. They’re quite easy to make, too, although I attempted to get fancy and make some in the shapes of characters in the book - including Ranger the cairn terrier, Smirr the big gray tomcat, and Butter the yellow kitten. Oh, I had plans! I thought of making one each in the shape of the women who run the bookshop and tearoom, one for the constable, and one for the Mr. Potato Chef food truck that appears in the book.

Sadness. The little dog lost a leg. The cats are hideous. And I gave up trying to freehand anything else. But not entirely. I did do one freehand shape. You can see it on the plate along with the traditional round oatcakes. Do you know what it is? Yes! It’s a vial of arsenic (although it looks more like a rocket ship's re-entry capsule).

The recipe is written with metric amounts. I’ve added the cup and ounce equivalents in parentheses.

 

If you’re looking for more Scottish recipes, here are three from the MLK archives.

Orange Almond Scones with Cardamom

Oat Shortbread with Dark Chocolate and Crystalized Ginger

Mary Jane Maffini’s Great-Great-Grandmother’s Scottish Shortbread

 

Scottish Oatcakes

(adapted from The Hebridean Baker: Recipes and Wee Stories from the Scottish Islands)

 Makes about a dozen, depending on size and shape you cut them

 

Ingredients

200g (2 cups) rolled oats

50g (⅓ cup) pinhead or steel-cut oats, plus extra for dusting

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon brown sugar

75g (⅓ cup) butter

75ml (¼ cup 2 tablespoons) boiling water

 

Directions

Preheat oven to 360 degrees F  (the recipe calls for 180 degrees C which is 360 degrees F). Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Stir rolled and pinhead (or steel-cut) oats together. Whir 100g (1 cup) of that mixture in a blender to make oat flour. Return the flour to the bowl. Add salt and sugar.

Stir the butter into the boiling water until its melted. Add to the oat mixture and combine until it begins to hold together in a dough.

Dust your work surface with pinhead oats (Note: I had steel-cut oats which just plain do not dust a work surface. Next time I might dust with whole wheat flour, or I might whir the extra steel-cut oats to make more oat flour and use that.) Roll dough to a thickness of about ¼ inch.

Use a biscuit cutter, or other shape of your choice to cut the dough. (Note: after I gave up being fancy, I used one of the round biscuit cutters I bought when I was a student at Edinburgh University in 1974. Worked like a charm.) Lift the oatcakes with a palette knife or metal spatula and arrange on parchment-lined sheet. Re-roll scraps until dough is used up. (Note: this wouldn’t be traditional, but it would be quick – cut the dough into rectangles or triangles with a chef knife or pizza cutter.)

Bake 20 minutes. Turn oven off. Carefully turn the oatcakes over and return to oven for 5 minutes. (Note: I forgot to turn the oven off before I returned the oatcakes for the last 5 minutes. It didn’t hurt them.)

Remove from oven. Transfer oatcakes to cooling rack.

Serve with salted butter and cheese (or anything else that sounds good!).

 

Something poisonous is coming March 1, 2022!

About Argyles and Arsenic – book 5 in the Highland Bookshop Mysteries:

After 93 well-lived years, Violet MacAskill is ready to simplify her life. Her eccentric solution? She’ll throw a decanting and decluttering party at her family home—a Scottish Baronial manor near the seaside town of Inversgail, Scotland. Violet sets aside everything she wants or needs, then she invites her many friends in to sip sherry and help themselves to whatever they want from all that’s left.

But a murder during Violet’s party leads to a poisonous game of cat and mouse – with the women of Yon Bonnie Books playing to win.

Available for pre-order in hardback and e-book from your locally owned independent bookstore, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon. Or ask your public library to consider ordering it.

 

The Boston Globe says Molly MacRae writes “murder with a dose of drollery.” She’s the author of the award-winning, national bestselling Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries and the Highland Bookshop Mysteries. As Margaret Welch, she writes books for Annie’s Fiction. Her short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine since 1990 and she’s a winner of the Sherwood Anderson Award for Short Fiction. Visit Molly on Facebook and Pinterest and connect with her on Twitter  or Instagram.

 

Welcome to Saint Brigid of Ireland

Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen is honored to welcome Saint Brigid, the female patron saint of Ireland, on the occasion of her annual feast day (which was February 1st) And a recipe!

I wish to give thanks to the ladies of Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen for inviting me to share my story with them. I don’t get out much any more, since I was born in the fifth century and am advanced in years, but that doesn’t mean I don’t keep busy.

You probably have heard more about Saint Patrick than about me, even though we were close in age. Of course, he was a man, and much more powerful than I ever was, so I lived in his shadow.

We both performed our share of miracles and watched over many Irish people, but there were differences between us. While Patrick received all the glory and power, I tended to all the ordinary tasks of daily life among the people. I like to think my job helped a greater number.

We each have a feast day, but I believe mine was the more important: February 1st (in modern terms), which the Irish believe is the first day of spring. That is the month when the lambs are born. Patrick’s day does not occur until March 17th, the day he is said to have died. But he gets many more celebrations than I do.

I told you I was busy, and I offer you a list of what I protect as patron saint: babies, blacksmiths, boatmen, cattle farmers, children of unmarried parents, children of abused mothers, dairymaids, dairy workers, fugitives, Ireland (the whole country), midwives, nuns, poets, the poor, poultry farmers, sailors, and scholars. I may have forgotten a few. You might notice that many of my responsibilities are connected to families (particularly women), and raising food. Trust a woman to look after the basic tasks while Patrick was said to be in charge of the whole country.

But I do not begrudge Patrick all the praise and parties. I like being part of daily life in Ireland. The country had changed, but not as much as you might think, as you’ll see if you look at the list.

I rarely cook, but simple oat cakes are usually eaten to mark my feast day. They’re easy to make of common ingredients, which is why I believe the simplicity of the oat cake is fitting of my station in life.

Note: when Brigid made oatcakes in her day, sugar was a rare item, so the small cakes are made of easily available ingredients and served with honey or jam, both natural products that would be easy to find. And I as interviewer confess I have no idea how these would have been cooked, but it’s safe to say it wasn’t on a cookie sheet.

St. Brigid’s Oatcakes

Ingredients:

2 cups medium oatmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
3 Tblsp water
2 Tblsp butter

Instructions:

Mix together the dry ingredients in a bowl and make a well in the center.

Place the water in a small saucepan with the butter, and bring to a boil. Pour the liquid into the dry ingredients and mix quickly into a stiff dough (add more water if necessary, and use your hands to mix the dough if you like).

Roll out the dough on a floured surface to about 1/4 inch thick. 

Cut into rounds with a cookie cutter. Sprinkle the tops with a bit more oatmeal and press it in.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a baking sheet and place the oatcakes on it. Bake in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes, or until the cakes are golden.

Cool on a wire rack, then serve with butter and honey or jam. And give thanks to St. Brigid.

May Brigid bless the house wherein you dwell.

Bealtaine Brígh beannaigh an teach 

ina bhfuil tú i do chónaí.