olive oil cookies - or, the cookies that involved everything in my cupboard

You might remember that a few weeks back I had my first baking adventure here in Italy. It went fairly well, and I decided to make my granola bars again once I moved into my real apartment. The baking itch has been bothering me recently, so I've been exploring my options.

Baking in Italy is problematic for a couple of reasons. First of all, there is the Fahrenheit/Celsius thing. Second of all, there is the problem of measurements (grams and ounces vs. cups, teaspoons and the like). But for me, the biggest problem was baking powder.

I had no idea how to say baking powder in Italian. Wordreference.com, my usual go-to site for Italian translations, said the word was the same as the word for yeast. Obviously, the two are not the same. A few google searches and I found out the word for baking powder is lievito in polvere, and that it comes in two versions: vanilla scented, for cakes and cookies, and unscented, for breads and pizzas.

Now savvy in the ways of lievito in polvere, I made big plans to bake bread. But then I got lazy. And then I bought focaccia. And then I went out for aperitivi three nights in a row. And then I decided that I didn't want to spend the money on a recipe I wasn't experienced with - especially in a tiny, tiny kitchen that provides limited baking supplies.

Fast forward to tonight: I was scouring my cupboard when I noticed I still had a good amount of ingredients left from when I made my granola bars: oatmeal, whole wheat flour, honey, raisins, and one egg. And, having invested in baking powder, I thought I had just the right ingredients to make oatmeal raisin cookies. I was missing one integral ingredient, however: butter. I have loads of olive oil, though, so I did a quick search for "olive oil cookies" and, lo and behold, they exist! I adjusted the recipe, did a fair amount of eyeballing, and gave it a whirl. In the end, they turned out deliciously - more like healthy cookie-cakes than the buttery, chewy cookies I was craving, but still delicious (delicious by my standards - I really dig whole grain, healthy option things). Here is the recipe to the best of my knowledge (like I said, a lot of eyeballing).

Olive Oil Cookies (in my case, olive oil oatmeal cookies):
Adapted from this recipe

Measurements used: One standard size coffee mug, one tea spoon.

1 mug whole wheat flour
1 mug rolled oats
1/2 mug sugar
1/2 mug honey
1 egg, beaten
3/4 cup olive oil
2 pinches baking powder
1 pinch salt
as many raisins as you have

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit (or 190 degrees Celsius, as I now know).

Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk they egg, and then blend with the sugar, honey, and olive oil. Slowly add the olive oil mixture to the dry ingredients. This is where I did a lot of eyeballing. I used all of the olive oil mixture, but ended up adding more of the rolled oats, flour, and baking powder, bit by bit, until I thought I had the correct texture for raw cookie dough. Then I mixed in the raisins.

On a cookie sheet, or a baking sheet lined with parchment paper (what I used), bake for about 10-12 minutes, or until golden brown. Allow to cool. Enjoy!


limited surface space and limited resources

final product!