I’m sick but I’ve been bitten by the cooking bug. The smell of fresh bread is wafting through my house and now I’m planning to make some cookies from a recipe I’ve used hundreds of times based on one from The Nursing Mothers’ Association of Australia Cookbook (circa 1978).

They call it fruit slab but I make it into individual cookies and I’ve changed the recipe substantially over the years so it’s barely recognisable but I like to give credit where credit is due. I don’t think the book is available anymore. Anyway here is my version of the recipe:

Ingredients

40g butter

35g olive oil (who says you can’t subsitute oil for butter?)

1 cup white SR flour

.5 cup wholemal plain flour

1.5 cups sultanas

1 cup shredded coconut

1 cup raw sugar

.5 tsp cinnamon

.25 tsp cardamom

.25 tsp ground ginger

2 eggs

Method

Melt butter in the olive oil. Put all the flours, sugar, spices and eggs into a bowl and mix. Add the melted butter/oil, mix and then add the coconut and sultanas. I like to mix with my hands you get a better homogeneity.

Grease a silicone baking sheet and spoon little piles on the sheet. Cook in a fan-forced oven at 180C for 10 minutes. Switch the oven off and leave the cookies in there for another 5 minutes. Cool and EAT!!!

Here’s the result…