Maple Syrup & Date Crumbs

While my lamb shoulder rogan josh curry is slowly bubbling away, a short update on what no one in their right mind would call cookies. They're more like crumbs. Delicious, sugary buttery crumbs you have to scrape off the baking tray. Mmmmm....


Ingredients (makes 16 slices)
125 grams salted butter
100 grams of white granulated sugar
1 large egg
50 grams self-raising flour
75 grams (porridge-quality) oatmeal
A little maple syrup (or use maple syrup flavoured oatmeal instead!)
10 dried dates
Plastic sandwich bag

Warm the butter in the microwave (5 seconds at full power, don't let it start to melt too much). Mix in the sugar with the butter until you have a homogeneous mass. Add the egg and beat. Now add the flour and oatmeal. Mix, make sure there's no flour left in the edges of your bowl. Finely chop up the dates and add to the mixture, stir until distributed evenly. Spoon the dough in a plastic sandwich bag and knead into a cylinder of about 5 cm in diameter. Put the dough in the freezer until hardened (about 30 minutes will do).

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C. Take the dough out of the plastic bag and cut into 1 cm slices. Squash the slices a little bit until the centre of the slice is thicker than the edges. Put on a baking tray. Repeat. Make sure you leave some space between the slices - they'll spread out tremendously. Put in the oven and bake for 10 minutes or until the edges of the slices are brown. Take the slices out of the oven and carefully lift them off the baking tray and onto a wire rack (this is easier when the baking tray is still warm). Leave them to cool. Chances are about half of your slices will bend, break or crumble as you lift them, leaving you only with crunchy, buttery, sugary bite-sizes crumbs... That is your intention.