(Recipe first posted on Patreon)
“There were acorn crunches, hazelnut shortbreads, honeyed oatcakes, and great bowls of woodland trifle… the air was thick with the scent of baking and spice.”
— Brian Jacques, Redwall (Feast description, ch. 17)
This was such a fun recipe to develop, not least of all because my daughter helped me get it right!
We’ve been hoping to make this recipe for over a year, because last year, we missed the window for good acorns. So we eagerly watched the ground under local oaks this fall for the first big batch. And boy, was it a good harvest! We then spent several days shelling and processing the acorns. We did one cold-leach bath, which took forever, but yielded lighter flour. But to ensure that we had crunch, I went with a boiling method for the batch for this recipe, which allowed me to keep larger pieces.
For a base recipe, I used something like a brandy snap, and an historical recipe that actually went into the 2nd GoT cookbook, albeit with pistachios (incidentally, that’s one of my favorites from that book!). Once we had the basic dough made up, I had my daughter sniff it with her super nose, and then she picked the spices. Cinnamon got two thumbs up, as did some nutmeg and ginger. Cardamom only got a middling vote, and cloves got a double thumbs down. She controlled how much of each spice went in, and I’m delighted to see she’s got a real instinct for baking.
The resulting cookies are thin and crunchy, with a warm spiciness that blends wonderfully with the nutty acorns. They can easily be snapped into smaller tasting-sized pieces for those who just want a taste, or enjoyed whole alongside some tea or coffee.
I love this recipe as-is, and it was very popular at our family’s Harvest Festival a few weeks ago. But it also reminded me of a Swiss cookie I put into the Overwatch cookbook, which has chocolate in the mix, so don’t be too surprised if you see that hybrid soon.
Redwall Acorn Crunch Recipe
Makes: about a dozen
Prep: 15 minutes
Baking: 20 minutes
Ingredients:
- ½ cup all purpose flour
- 2/3 cup chopped and leached acorns (instructions here)
- 1/2 cup raw sugar
- 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp. each nutmeg and ginger
- 1 Tbs. dark honey (I used Buckwheat)
- 1/4 cup melted butter
- water, if needed
Preheat oven to 300 °F (150 °C) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In the bowl of a food processor, grind together the flour, acorn flour, sugar, and spices. Add in the honey and butter, and any water needed to bring the mixture together into a cohesive dough.
Roll into small balls about 1″ across, then flatten onto the prepared baking sheet, using either hands or the bottom of a glass.
Bake for around 20 minutes, until fragrant, and the cookies lift easily from the pan. Enjoy slightly warm for a bit of chew, or allow to cool for the full crunch.
