Hello again! Here I am – it’s been a long time!!! And indeed, mea culpa, however I’m pretty sure that you will forgive me when I tell you why…

Oh yes, we’ll get to those long-promised cookies, but first, the answer to the question, “why the leave of absence??” 

Well, a couple of months ago I found out that we are expecting our own little cookie, ETA early May 2018 😀 😀 😀

And about one week after learning that news, crazy pregnancy hormones kicked in! I’ve never had a great sense of smell, but suddenly all I could smell were strong, unpleasant scents – especially in the kitchen 😦 And so I have stayed away; there have been no cakes, no cookies, nothing baked by mine own hand up until the last week or so. Just the thought of talking about food has also made my tummy turn, so I have kept my distance from the food blogosphere, to my great sorrow and sadness 😦 😦

But second trimester sunlight is now streaming through and (apart from the sinus cold I caught this week…) things have been looking up. Either I’ve gotten used to my newly super-sensitive schnoz, or the hormones have calmed down. Crazy cravings have reduced also: would you believe that I went a good month without sugary goodies because I only wanted savoury?! No, I could never ask you to believe such a thing…

So now we are delighting in planning for when this wee one is fully baked! It’s almost too good to be true – we have struggled to get to this point, and I was starting to wonder if there was going to be a Baby Sweet norwesterly. But God in his kindness is giving us this gift, so I am treasuring every moment of it, not knowing how many moments we will get. xoxoxxxx

And nooooowwwww…back to those cookies:

These taste similar to ANZAC biscuits if you’re a fan of those, but with a bit more variety – you can basically add whatever you have a part-packet of in your pantry. And of course, they were designed to use up leftover fruit crumble topping {I didn’t realise it was possible to have too much sweet, crunchy topping until we made it for 50 people at camp!}

Crumble Topping Cookies

The first ingredients listed down to the butter (but excluding the baking powder) can be combined to make actual crumble topping, enough to cover a large lasagne dish of cooked fruit (tasty combos are apple and berries or apricot and ginger). 

If you are making cookies with  leftover topping, do not add oats, flour, spices, brown sugar or butter as your topping will have these things already. Just add the other ingredients (baking powder plus ‘add ins’) below! If you have more or less than the 3 cups of crumble topping listed in the recipe, adjust the quantities of these other ingredients based on the volume of topping you have: 

[ Ingredient volume ] x [ topping volume (measured in cups) ÷  3 ]

E.g. If you have 4 cups of leftover crumble topping mixture:

4 cups mixture ÷  3 = 1.33

In this example you would need to multiply each additional ingredient by 1.33:

1.33 x 1/2 cup = 2/3 cup chocolate chips, etc.

If you’ve used another recipe for your crumble topping and it doesn’t have one or more of flour, oats, butter, spices or sugar (brown or white), make sure you add that missing ingredient according to the formula above also. Please note you may get slightly different results to me though, just because of the scientific nature of baking and how deviations from any formula can head us in a different direction!

Here’s the recipe for a good sized batch (up to 30 cookies if made small):

• 3 cups leftover crumble topping

Or:

• 2 c quick cook oats
• 2 c flour
• 2 tsp mixed spice (or combination of other spices you like, e.g. cinnamon, nutmeg)
• 1.5 c brown sugar
• 250g butter

Plus:

• 1.5 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup sliced or chopped nuts (walnuts, almonds)
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips
• 1 cup chopped dates/dried fruit
• 1/4 cup golden syrup
• 1 egg, lightly beaten

1. Combine the first five ingredients in a bowl or food processor (if large enough).
2. Melt the butter and stir or pulse into the mixture. If you have so far used a food processor, now tip the the mixture into a large bowl before adding the ‘add ins’.
3. Add the remaining ingredients and stir together until well combined.
4. Form mixture into tablespoon-sized balls and place 3 inches apart on lined baking trays. Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 20-25 minutes or until the cookie edges are firm.

 

Delicious with a cup of tea, as per below 😉

See you SOONer! Now that I’ve got the baking bug back, I can’t wait to get into some holiday recipes for the upcoming festive season – let’s just say that reindeers and gingerbread are sure to follow!!!

Update 21 March 2018: I see this recipe has been getting a few hits lately (must be crumble season!) so I’ve updated the instructions to try and clarify how to adapt the recipe for leftover crumble topping. PLEASE let me know if it is unclear in any way. And if you do try this, I’d love to hear (and see!) your results – leave a comment or tag me on IG @sweet_norwesterly xoxo

Update 30 September 2019: Exciting to see so many hits on this page, seems like everyone has leftover crumble topping!! Please let me know if you try this recipe, I’ve just had a go at simplifying it  because the formula was unnecessarily complicated (clearly baby brain won out for a long time…) and the ingredient list was a bit confusing. Hope it’s more helpful now!