Cape Breton-Style Oatcakes

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Cape Breton oatcakes are a simple, buttery, not overly-sweet, utterly addictive oat cookie.

Oatcakes on a white rectangle plate.

Wandering around my local cheese shop the other day, I came across something called Cape Breton oatcakes from Nova Scotia. They were advertised as a tea biscuit, cheese cracker, or a lightly sweetened cookie. Being a baker, it’s rare for me to purchase a package of store-bought cookies, but I was intrigued by something that could be called all three.

I bought a box to serve alongside an oozy hunk of triple-crème brie and fig jam…except the oatcakes never made it to the cheese plate. I broke into the package just to see what they tasted like – delicately crunchy, buttery, simple, slightly salty-sweet, and utterly addictive. I devoured the entire box in a matter of days.

In an attempt to replicate my new discovery, I found a number of Cape Breton oatcake recipes online, but none seemed to match the cookie (cracker?) I was trying to duplicate – some were thick, some were loaded with sugar (both brown and white), some made with shortening, many lumpy with whole oats. So, as I often do, I forged out on my own…

Cape Breton–Style Oatcakes

Cape Breton oatcakes are a simple, buttery, not overly-sweet, utterly addictive oat cookie.


Ingredients

  • 1 ½ cups old-fashion rolled oats
  • 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
  • ½ cup sugar
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • ¼ teaspoon (rounded) kosher salt
  • 1 cup unsalted butter, very cold and cut into small pieces
  • 3 Tablespoons milk

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. and line two baking sheets with parchment.
  2. In the bowl of food processor, pulse oats until the texture of meal. Add flour, sugar, baking soda and salt and process to combine. Add very cold butter and pulse until mixture resembles bread crumbs. Add milk and process until dough just begins to come together. Turn dough out onto work surface and form into two balls. Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for 15 minutes.
  3. Dust your work surface with flour and, working with one ball at a time, roll the dough out until ¼ inch thick. Cut with a 2 ½ inch round cutter or cut into squares. Transfer to baking sheets and refrigerate again for 10 minutes.
  4. Bake for 9 to 11 minutes until the edges are just beginning to turn golden. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container, if you don’t eat them all immediately.

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8 thoughts on “Cape Breton-Style Oatcakes”

  2. Pingback: 20 Easy Butter Cookies Recipes - Karen Monica

  3. I was raised on OAT CAKES, my granny made them all summer long for us when we cam for the summer. Ours were rolled thin and then cut into random triangle shape. We used lard and a knob of butter

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  4. These oatcakes are excellent. I was looking for something low sugar to have with morning coffee. I’d tried other recipes, but the cakes were dry and bland. These are buttery and tender without being crumbly.

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  5. Have used this recipe several times now and I’m experimenting with variations. This week I used whole wheat instead of all purpose flour and I added a scant teaspoon of ground cinnamon. The whole wheat flour made the dough much darker. Had to pay close attention to determine when they were done. No significant difference in flavor. Next time I think I’ll try cardamom and go back to general purpose. Remains a great accompaniment to morning coffee.

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  6. Thank you for reaching out! The cardamom is a lovely idea – one of my favorite spices and shows up often in my baking. As I’m sitting here with my coffee and oatmeal, the idea of a few oatcakes sounds much better! – Julie

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