Delicious sultana and oat biscuits that are very easy to make, they don't last long in this house!

Sometimes I get the urge for some biscuits, generally when we haven't bought any. I always keep this recipe to hand just in case it's one of those 'tea & biscuit' days. Obviously there is some preparation involved, but really it doesn't take that long. The dough can be prepared in advance and frozen, all that needs to be done then is to defrost and bake the biscuits. As they are sultana and oat biscuits there is a little bit of goodness in there, not a great deal granted so probably wouldn't be considered a 'healthy biscuit'.

Here's the recipe I use to make them. By keeping the basic oat biscuit recipe as the base recipe you can vary the dried fruit used, just substitute the sultanas for dried apricots for example. The fruit does need to be dried though, otherwise you'll be adding extra liquid to the biscuit dough with giving you an unknown outcome.

One dough mix will make around 20ish biscuits, depending on how thick or thin you slice them.

Oat biscuit recipe ingredients

• 130 grams unsalted butter
• 175 grams of flour and a small handful for the worktop later
• 175 grams of sugar (preferably a fine sugar)
• 85 grams of rolled oats
• 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
• Small dash of vanilla essence, about 1/2 teaspoon
• 1 medium egg

The dried fruit ingredients, always needs 100 grams of some kind of dried fruit

• 100 grams of sultanas

How to make the oat biscuit dough

Get a bowl (preferably a microwave friendly one for cold butter) and chop the butter up into smallish chunks and throw it in. It's best if the butter is room temp for mixing, but we can get around that if it's straight from the fridge later on. To save on washing up a good idea is to measure the ingredients into the same bowl as you go through. Add the baking powder, flour, oats and sugar. Add your vanilla essence.

If your butter is already soft get straight in there with clean hands (and nails!) and get mixing, squishing the butter into the flour, sugar and oats. If you butter is fridge temp this is very hard work, so give it a quick mix around then pop the bowl in the microwave for 10 seconds just to increase it's temperature slightly (but not melt it), you can then begin mixing with ease. Mix the dough, which will be very sticky to begin with, until is cleans the bowl and your hands of sticky dough.

Beat the egg and chuck it in, along with the sultanas. Flour a clean surface to one side ready for later. Now you may want to mix with a spoon, but I find it much easier to use my hands. It gets a bit messy and once you've mixed it well you'll have to scrape it off your hands a bit. Scrape the dough out of the bowl onto your floured surface ready to be rolled. Wash off any remaining dough off your hands.

On another area lay out some cling film ready. Flour your hands slightly and roll the dough into a sausage shape just a bit less than the size of biscuit you'd like to make. Pop the dough on the cling film and wrap tightly. This needs to be put in the fridge to cool the butter in the mixture to make it easy to slice.

Once firm, slice the dough into biscuit sized slices and bake at 170 degrees for about 10-15 minutes on baking paper on a tray. Keep an eye on them or they will burn! They can suddenly take colour. The speed at which they bake will depend on your oven and the biscuit thickness.

Once baked to a light brown colour (underneath as well) lift off each biscuit carefully with a spatula onto a wire rack to cool. They will still be soft so be careful.

• Prev