Swedish oat biscuits: simple, healthy & delicious
If you love biscuits that don’t need a lot of bric-a-brac and are therefore super easy to bake, oat biscuits are the perfect choice. The simple, round cookies also exist in Sweden: here they are called Havreflarn and are an integral part of the fika, the daily coffee break. Whether homemade or from a Swedish furniture store, they are delicious either way.
Swedish oat biscuits Recipe
- 1 Egg
- 125 g Sugar
- 100 g Soft Butter
- 1,5 Tsp Vanilla sugar or extract
- 200 g Fine oat flakes
- 80 g Flour
- 1 Sachet Baking Powder
- 1 Pint Salt
- 1 Pint Cinnamon
- Hand mixer
- Baking paper
- Ingredients
- 1 Egg
- •125 g Sugar
- •100 g Soft Butter
- •1,5 Tsp Vanilla sugar or extract
- •200 g Fine oat flakes
- •80 g Flour
- •1 Sachet Baking Powder
- •1 Pint Salt
- •1 Pint Cinnamon
- Utils
- Hand mixer
Firstly, preheat the oven to 190°C top/bottom heat. Then beat the sugar and egg in a bowl with a hand mixer or food processor until creamy. Mix in the softened butter and vanilla sugar or extract. In a second bowl, mix together the rolled oats, flour, baking powder and a little salt and cinnamon.
- Utils
- Baking paper
Combine the contents of both bowls and mix them to form a sticky dough. Then line a baking tray with baking paper and shape the dough into small balls. Flatten them out a little (note: the biscuit dough will leak a lot when baking, so make sure you leave enough space between the blobs of dough and place them on the tray in staggered layers).
Place the tray on the middle rail and bake the biscuits for approx. 9-10 minutes. They are ready as soon as the edges turn golden brown. However, the biscuits should still be a little soft, as they harden as they cool.
You can vary the recipe to your heart’s content by adding your favourite ingredients. How about chocolate drops or nuts?
The tradition of Swedish biscuits
They are simple and yet so good: Compared to other biscuits, havreflarn, as they are called in Swedish, are considered healthy and relatively filling, as oats are a healthy source of energy. Another positive aspect is that due to the oat flakes significantly less flour is needed than with other types of biscuits. This makes oat biscuits a great snack alternative that can be made even healthier with a few tricks. We have listed a few tips below.
Today they are an integral part of the Swedish coffee break, called fika. Swedes can’t get enough of the delicious biscuits. Anyone who has ever been on holiday in Sweden and had a fika in a café will remember the oat biscuits. So it’s even nicer that we can easily bring this feeling home with us.
Buy oatmeal biscuits
No time to bake right now? Sometimes you can buy the delicious Swedish biscuits in the supermarket, for example at Lidl or Aldi. The manufacturer Brandt has its “Hobbits” biscuits in its range – with or without chocolate.
If you want original Swedish cookies, you can take a look at IKEA’s food range. Oat biscuits are available here in an extra-large pack and also in a sugar-free version. The Swedish manufacturer “Gille” even sells oat biscuits as double biscuits with lots of chocolate in the centre – delicious!
Chocolate, fruit, nuts: pimping oat biscuits
If you find oat biscuits too boring or too dry as they are, you can vary the recipe as you wish and add your favourite ingredients or replace them with others. For Christmas you can add a little more cinnamon than the basic recipe calls for to enhance the flavour. Other Christmas spices also work very well.
There are several options for chocolate fans: Either coat the biscuits with melted chocolate afterwards or pimp them with a few chocolate drops or chunks, which go particularly well with the crunchy biscuit. Alternatively, you can stick two biscuits together with chocolate in between. Chopped or ground nuts or almonds and dried fruits go very well in the recipe too. Pieces of red berries add colour.
Tips: The oat flakes should ideally be soft for the biscuits. You can use wholemeal or spelt flour as an alternative to wheat flour. If you would like to make the oat biscuits vegan, omit the egg and use margarine instead of butter.
Storing biscuits in Scandinavian style
The crispy biscuits will last for around a few weeks if stored correctly. This applies to both homemade and shop-bought oatmeal biscuits. To prevent them from getting soft so quickly, it is best to put them in a nice biscuit tin or a tightly sealed storage jar. These are available in a simple, Scandinavian design.
