Porridge oat biscuits recipe

During recent times we’ve been looking for easy sweet treats made from ingredients found in most cupboards. We’ve stumbled upon a treasure trove in this regard; old SWRI recipe books from Orkney.

These biscuits spread out to cookie size and they are absolutely delicious. We thought they were best when left to go cold rather than eating them straight out of the oven. They become lovely and chewy when cool!

The recipe for Porridge oat biscuits was found in the Birsay SWRI Recipe Book from 1979. However none of the members who contributed were credited for their recipes, so our grateful thanks go to an unnamed chef from Birsay.

These biscuits spread out to cookie size and they are absolutely delicious. We thought they were best when left to go cold rather than eating them straight out of the oven. They become lovely and chewy when cool!

Porridge oat biscuits ingredients
Porridge oat biscuits ingredients photo © Copyright Magnus Dixon

Ingredients:

  • 1 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 cup porridge oats
  • 2 cup plain flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
  • 225g margarine
  • 2 teaspoons syrup
  • 2 teaspoons water
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla essence
Porridge oat biscuits dry ingredients
Porridge oat biscuits dry ingredients photo © Copyright Magnus Dixon

Method:

  1. Mix the sugar (we used caster sugar as we didn’t have any granulated sugar in the cupboard), oats, flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda together in one bowl.
  2. An another bowl, melt the margarine, syrup, water and vanilla essence. We put it into a microwave on full power for 1 minute and stirred it afterwards.
Porridge oat biscuits mixture to melt
Porridge oat biscuits mixture photo © Copyright Magnus Dixon
  1. Pour the melted mixture over the dry ingredients and mix it all until the entire mixture is moist.
  2. Make into small balls and flatten into biscuit shapes on a baking tray with grease-proof paper.
  3. We made around 22 biscuits across three baking trays.
Porridge oat biscuits on a baking tray
Porridge oat biscuits on a baking tray photo © Copyright Magnus Dixon
  1. Make sure they are well spaced out as the biscuits spread in the oven!
  2. Put into an oven and cook for 10 minutes at 200°C
Delicious porridge oat biscuits
A stack of delicious porridge oat biscuits photo © Copyright Magnus Dixon
  1. Set aside to cool, and try not to eat them all in a single day!
Magnus DixonBy Magnus Dixon
Orkney and Shetland enthusiast, family man, loves walks, likes animals, terrible at sports, dire taste in music, adores audiobooks and films, eats a little too much for his own good.

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Header image: Porridge oat biscuits out of the oven photo © Copyright Magnus Dixon