Homey Cookies (oatmeal raisin cookies)

I am a sucker for advertising. Sell me a bottle of water for 15 cents and I think it is reasonable. Slap a nice label on a snazzily designed bottle of the same water and I will happily pay ten times that price and walk away thinking I got a good deal. I suppose it is the same mechanism (albeit in the opposite direction) that gives me sticker fever.

Another branch off that same tree is the warm, fuzzy, back-to-childhood feeling I get about certain foods, even if they’re relative newcomers in my life. It doesn’t matter that turkey never featured on our Christmas dinner table growing up; I have seen so many American tv Christmas dinners, read references to Christmas turkey and heard about big bird Christmas adventures so often they feel like my heritage, too. I want a good old-fashioned trussed turkey for Christmas, even if it is the first time!

The same thing has happened between me and oatmeal-raisin cookies. I don’t remember ever eating one as a kid. I remember fantastic homemade butter cookies with a whole hazelnut on top. I remember fresh apple pie and, boy, do I remember individual sponge cakes with fluorescent pink frosting. But oatmeal-raisin cookies? Nope. Still, I have come to a point where I firmly associate these cookies with home, coziness and long afternoons running through flowery fields. I grew up in a house where the closest field of flowers was… not somewhere I ever got to. No matter, the feeling is there and sometimes I like to milk it for all it is worth.

Which is why I baked oatmeal-raisin cookies when I wanted to make a friend feel welcome this weekend. And to give the cookies that extra-homey touch, I added a good pinch of cinnamon. They were crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside and very cozy indeed. The recipe comes from Cooking With Friends; I halved it, substituted vanilla sugar for the granulated sugar, omitted the vanilla extract and dialed down the amount of salt and raisins. The original can be found here, among other places, my version is below.

Oh, and for the drink pairing to make this my second koek en zopie entry? What else than a glass of cold milk? Another thing I didn’t do in my childhood (we had tea with our cookies), but that seems so right now: milk and cookies.

Oatmeal-raisin cookies

Based on Cooking with Friends

Makes about 15

90 gr butter, softened
80 gr firmly packed light brown sugar
65 gr vanilla sugar (not the synthetic stuff from small packets)
1 small egg
85 gr rolled oats
80 gr plain flour
scant 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
scant 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
large pinch of cinnamon
handful raisins

Preheat the oven to 190C.

Cream butter and sugars together until light and fluffy. Add egg and beat until well combined.
In a separate bowl, combine oats, flour, soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Mix into butter mixture until just combined. Stir in raisins.

Form the dough into small golf ball-sized orbs and flatten onto a baking sheet covered with a silicone mat. Leave quite a bit of room between the disks to allow for spreading.

Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown. Cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes and then continue cooling on a rack.

Koek en zopie (Chocolate Chunk Cookies and Spiced Coffee)

There is this thing we do in the NL, where talk about "koek en zopie" a lot when temperatures drop below zero. It probably doesn't look like it, but is pronounced close to "cook and so pee". Which pronunciation, although you lose all meaning, accurately conveys the slight yuck-factor the words have for me. Saying them sends a shiver down my spine, and not a good kind.

Still, the koek en zopie rhetoric fascinates me. Few people seem to know exactly what it means. (Well, "koek" is easy enough; it means cookie or cake. But "zopie"? My hunch stops at something warm and liquid with a high alcohol content.) We associate it with warming our hands around a mug of hot chocolate, but then we buy split pea soup at a koek en zopie stall without batting an eyelash. Best of all, you can happily spend an hour discussing what koek en zopie is, get no nearer to the answer and come away with a legitimate craving for thick, sweet, hot drinks topped with great dollops of whipped cream.

There is a strong bond between koek en zopie and ice skating outside (as opposed to on an indoor rink), but we hardly get to do that anymore. Since I refuse to get out onto something as slippery as ice (ICE, people) with just thin metal blades strapped to my feet, the lack of cold over the past winters doesn't concern me. What does concern me, however, is that we might not keep the koek en zopie talk going for much longer. Even though that would relieve me of a shivery spine, it would also make me sad. So, for the internets and for generations to come, I will start my own koek en zopie tradition. Over the coming months, when I bake a cookie, I will dream up a hot drink to go with it. And when I come across a great hot drink, I will come up with a cookie to accompany it. And then I will write about the combo, and call it "Koek en Zopie". Voila, koek en zopie for the cyber-age.

First up: Jess Thomson’s Cinnamon-Coconut Chocolate Chunk Cookies. I brought these into the office this Friday (sans coconut; I am not a fan) and they inspired quite a few comments. Of the “are you vegetarian?” type, because apparently that is what millet makes people think. But more, far more, of the “oh my, these are great” type. And they are.

These are wintery cookies, with a chewy bite, crunch from the millet, a cinnamon scent and big chunks of chocolate. They have enough character to stand up to an assertive drink, so for my first koek en zopie pairing, I would like to suggest you eat them with a small cup of strong coffee, scented with a few freshly ground cardamom seeds and a pinch of ground ginger. Spicy koek en zopie to warm you through and through.