Melting Moments, healthy melt-in-the-mouth oat cookies, are so easy to bake at home with kids. It's also a good oat cookie recipe without eggs. As mini cookies, they're great for birthday parties too.
Made in just 30 minutes, you'll discover why they're called melting moments.
Why are They Called Melting Moments?
Why Melting Moments? Well that's what these biscuits or cookies were called from my Brownie's Cookbook. (Were you ever a Brownie? Not to be confused with the chocolate cake, Brownies are the younger group before Guides, as part of the Baden Powell Scout groups.) It was my first ever introduction to baking, when I also had precious moments with my own Mum in the kitchen and the gooey fun to plunge my hands in sticky dough and roll them in oats.
So I have a soft spot for these wee melt-in-the-mouth gems. Now, too do my own kids. A birthday party always includes their favourite melting moments - as I discovered on my daughter Julie's 18th party. She's always a kid with these oat cookies!
As Julie was preparing a last-minute 18th birthday party before the French baccalaureate exams, I offered to help. She was excited to make macarons and her favourite giant birthday éclairs with strawberries and elderflower cream (recipe is in my book, Teatime in Paris.) I just piped them out in a giant "18" as an éclair cake!
Then, sure enough, she was checking out our splattered, tattered recipe sheet to get rolling her favourite little buttery biscuits in oats. Who could forget these?
Easy Oat Cookies - Great for Baking with Kids
Melting Moments are so fun to make with kids. Why is rolling the best part? To get their palms sticky, rolling these dainties into little balls, flattening them quickly and pressing in tiny pieces of glacé cherries.
The proverbial cherry on top has been seeing them gain some confidence in the kitchen via baking. When it comes to the tasting in the end, their final masterpieces always taste better when they've been made by their own hands.
Plus, ça va sans dire (it goes without saying), that making them is indeed precious melting moments of mother and daughters together in the kitchen. Even their Dad was asking to press the cherries on top. Jealous or what?
Melting Moments - Great Recipe for Glacé Cherries
I particularly adore the glacé cherries, as we buy them cheaply by the kilo in Provence, near my parents-in-law's house in Saignon, near Apt. Did you know that Apt is the world capital of glacé fruits (candied fruits)? So every time we visit, I stock up on glacé fruits from cherries, candied orange peel, to crystallised ginger.
However, all that to say is ensure your glacé cherries are good quality and sticky wet make Melting Moments the best. Dried out ones at the back of the cupboard will ruin the lovely taste of them!
Healthy Oat Cookies
Melting Moments are also one of the quickest and easiest cookies to rustle up for a tea party. They're also full of soluble fibre using oat flour and finished off rolled in oat flakes.
This is an updated recipe from my original post published on 24 October 2011 - as, over the years, we don't have an overly sweet tooth so we've lowered the sugar content again since.
Oat Cookies Without Eggs
As you can see from the recipe, the egg is entirely optional. We have made this recipe many times without an egg and the taste is just as good.
Melting Moments Oat Biscuits
Melting Moments - Oat Biscuits
Ingredients
- 100 g (3.5oz) butter softened
- 55 g (2oz) caster sugar
- 1 small organic egg (optional)
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract or vanilla powder
- 100 g (3.5oz) plain (all-purpose) flour
- 50 g (2oz) fine oatmeal
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- medium porridge oats for rolling
- 4 glacé cherries or dried cranberries for decoration Cut into fine bits
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180°C. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Stir in the flour, oatmeal, baking powder and mix well.
- Roll walnut size pieces of the mixture into balls, and roll each one in the oat flakes.
- Place them on baking trays covered in baking paper or on a silicone mat, flattening slightly each one with the finger, then place ¼ glacé cherry on each (or any other candied fruit; candied orange peel is good, too.)
- Bake for 10-12 minutes until golden brown then cool on a wire rack.
Lucie
Love this recipe, thanks mum 🙂 It’s so cool that I’ve got such easy access to family recipes like these!
Jill Colonna
It's the biggest reward to have you make them now - thanks, Lucie. I'm also so happy they bring back lots of party memories. xx
Shirley Moffat
Jill I could not believe my eyes when I saw the plate of melting moments it took me back so many years - they remind me so much of mum - I am so delighted that Julie and Lucie like them too. Keep up the good work Jill!!
Jill Colonna
Well I'm so excited to hear that, Auntie Shirley, and so proud to keep on the family traditions
Christina Conte
Lovely classic biscuit recipe, Jill! So lovely that they're still requested after all the years of having them! They must be good, right?
Jill Colonna
They must be. I love watching their faces on their first bite, Christina. It obviously has turned into their Madeleine de Proust!
Mimi
Interesting! They do look yummy.
Jill Colonna
Thanks, Mimi. They're melt-in-the-mouth. I love watching my girls' eyes when they bite into them - nostalgia on a plate!
Liz
LOL, moms can have as many melting moments as toddlers or teens! These sound fabulous, but wish I had some candied cherries from Provence 🙂 Belated birthday wishes to Julie!! xo
Jill Colonna
I'm sure you have some juicy, sticky candied cherries chez toi as well, Liz. Thanks for your kind wishes for Julie. She's so relieved that the exams are finally over!
Bea
Thanks Jill, I cant wait to make these later today! You know I'm for anything with oats..lol..wish I could get Hamlyns Oats of Scotland too. That would really make my day. Hopefully I will get to visit one day. My ancestors come from Iverness..I just found that out in 1640 I think it was..I'm so excited.
Jill Colonna
Wow! 1640? Bea, that must be incredible to find out your family history as far back so no wonder you're excited. I'm just excited that you'll be making these Melting Moments, lol!