Chocolate and Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

 

Amberley Cow Hunt

What’s a Cow Hunt when it involves children and adults alike and 30 wooden cut-outs on a Spring afternoon? In Amberley, Gloucestershire it’s a fund-raising event for the local school. The third annual Cow Hunt event took place the weekend of the 7th and 8th May. The hunt is inspired by the annual release of real-life cows to graze the Amberley common for the summer.

Cows are scattered around the village and a trail map enables those taking part to track each cow. Completed maps are entered into a prize draw.  The cows are creatively decorated by local families and given names using the cow theme to form clever puns. For instance, Moo-donna was dressed in a black lace bra, blond wig, leotard and fish-net tights. Other cows ranged from the Udderly Ridiculous:

to the Dairy Fairy

and of course no event would be complete without Cowwy Potter

One of the best parts of the Cow Hunt is the Tea Rooms set up by some of the mother’s and held outside on the Common. All cakes are donated and included everything from scones to victoria sponge to fairy cakes.

It’s a great place for socialising, as well as tucking in to some very yummy “afternoon tea”. The kids all have a great time playing together on the grass.

In addition, children from Year Six set up a stall doing face painting, nails and portraits to help raise money for charity.

And finally just when you thought it couldn’t get any better along came the donkeys!

I am lucky enough to live here and have been involved in this great event each year. It takes a lot of work and an incredible amount of organisation on behalf of those who volunteer to help. The kids have such an amazing time and people come from all over to take part. Can’t beat that!

 

Chocolate and Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

These cookies were my contribution to the Cow Hunt Tea Rooms. I  made double the recipe to ensure there were plenty to go round. The recipe for these cookies comes from Everything Little Thing blog, a “beginner’s guide to natural living”. Stacy is very interested in nutrition and the impact it has on human behaviour, particularly that of children. I liked her cookies for their oats, wheat flour and maple syrup as well as their chocolate chips! A good way of getting kids to eat some healthy, natural ingredients without them realising it.

 So here’s what I did to her cookies…not much of a change actually. Just added the peanut butter chips.

Ingredients
2 cups rolled oats
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup maple syrup
2 eggs
1/2 cup of butter, softened
1  cup plain chocolate chips
1 cup peanut butter chips (optional – increase chocolate chips by half a cup if not using)

Preheat oven to 325f. Lightly oil a baking tray.

Combine all ingredients in to a bowl and mix well.

Use a tablespoon to scoop out dough on to tray (I made mine large so used two tablespoon scoops). Flatten scoops with the back of a spatula. They don’t melt very much in the oven so if you want them to spread you need to flatten them a bit.

Bake for 12-15 minutes until they start to brown. Let them cool for a minute and then use a spatula to remove from baking tray.

And just in case you didn’t know, apparently in space no one can hear you “mooooo.”