There is one mistake in my previous comment, I used 3/4 cups of hot water and not 1.5 cups!!!

I've just made a batch of these oatcakes, but instead of cranberries I used rosemary. I live in Brazil and it is difficult to find cranberries over here.
They turned out just fantastic!
I was hesitant due to the contradictory comments. I used 200gr of oatmeal and 1 and 1/2 cup of water, large tbsp of butter, and a tsp of rosemary and they came out perfect.
I made them in two batches, first of 1/2cm thick, and then sort of 3mm thin and both turned out great.
The only comment, is that I am giving them an extra-bake of 10 min once they are warm to assure they will dry properly, as if they were biscotti.
I could turn them upside down perfectly.
As in Brazil oatcakes cost a fortune, I know I will repeat this recipe on and on.
THANKS!

PLEASE HELP ME!!! Hi, sorry about the lack of rating. I haven't actually made them yet so I don't know what they'll taste like. But I don't have any bicarbonate of soda, so I need a substitute really quickly! I thought maybe baking powder, but that would make them rise and they're supposed to be flat. Thank you! ELLISCOOKS, a tbsp is 25g, or thereabouts. I'd say you'd cook them after defrosting, but have you just made the dough or cut out biscuits? If it's just the dough, wait to defrost then roll out, etc. If you've got the biscuit shapes already, put them straight into the oven. Thank you again!

Hi
I made some of these the other day, really really lovely. I used ordinary porridge from the supermarket and they came together well. Though the recipe asks for a table spoon of butter? How on earth are you suppose to measure that out? I just cut a knob roughly the size of my tblsp.
I have frozen some more but am wondering if you cook them from frozen or do you need to defrost them?

Hope some1 can help me these sound really nice and i wanna make some of these 4 gift 2 put in hampers, do u think this recipe would freeze so i can make ahead of time many thanks

These have come out very well. Maybe those that have had a dry mixture need to enlarge their tablespoon of butter? I don't know... Anyway, I'm going to try and make oatcakes with whisky in them next - yum!

Ended up with lovely tasty, crunchy oatcakes (did the version with black pepper) - best done as circles rather than other shapes as stars broke up a bit when I tried to turn them.

The type of oatmeal matters - I tried another time with stoneground oatmeal (Alfords) which had more large bits in and it didn't work at all well - very crumbly and disintegrated. Prewetts medium oatmeal worked well though.

I don't understand why people think this recipe works at all. Dry crumbs is what I ended up with. So added more butter, and got some biscuits, but they are very fragile, and crumble as soon as you touch them. Don't taste that great either.

We loved these and my teenage daughter, who has never eaten oatcakes before, devoured these and has become an oatcake lover as a result. She continues to prompt me to make these again - so I will. I made them with cranberries, chopped crystallized ginger and plain. All were good but the cranberries were probably the best.

These always go down a storm with my family. I've found that the trick is to make sure they're thick enough as if they're too thin (i.e. less than 5mm) then they do tend to dry out a little too much and can fall to pieces.

They're delicious with cranberries but, as someone suggested above, I've tried them with cracked black pepper or herbs and it works really well.

Very fiddly and definitely wouldn't be able to use xmas shape cutters with the mixture I ended up with- may have been because I used coarse oatmeal or not enough fat although I used amounts stated.

I ended up with dry crumbs and only 4 oatcakes that had kept their shape and still look a bit fragile. Don't think i would make again and definitely not with coarse oatmeal, will look for a different recipe though as flavour was OK.

I left out the cranberries and tried the black pepper version. Had to cook them for 10 mins longer than the recipe said, but I think I should have made them a bit thinner. Turned out okay.

they were lovely, I havent ever made oatcakes before, they were a bit dry but enjoyable with a bit of stilton and port! We ate them on burns night was a perfect end to the meal!

This is the first time I've made oatcakes and we all really enjoyed them, so much nicer than shop bought ones. I took them along to a friend's house for a hogmanay buffet and she asked for the recipe.

Very dry. But never had oatcakes like this before so maybe thats why we didnt like it!