Originally published by The Clifton Courier, May 22, 2019

I made these the other day when the great void inside me yearned for something cake-y and lemon myrtle-y. I’d recently had a piece (and the unattended leftovers of several strangers) of lemon myrtle cake a friend’s party and bought a sachet of the quintessentially Australian flavouring at a market stall. I had a hankering that just couldn’t be satisfied by the pumpkiny lumps I’ve been making so much of and thus these… things* were created.

* They’re not exactly biscuits, but not entirely scones. I mean, I COULD have called them sconscuits or biscones, but I guess I didn’t have the foresight to invent a culinary term at the time. You better believe that I shan’t lack the bravery to boldly invent new terms in my ground-breaking cook booklet that leads to a cooking show that leads to a career of towering highs and crushing lows before a nice, comfortable period as an extremely wealthy and wise 50-year-old with a massive kitchen and a refreshing outlook on life.

Here’s something I wouldn’t so much call a recipe as a creative process:

Pulse three cups of rolled oats in your food processor – this is apparently my base for all food items these days. Sure, it’s gluten free and probs like low GI or something, but I genuinely love oats. It’s possibly because horses like oats and because I have the soul of a wild mare with a flowing mane, galloping into the sunset.

Next, get three teaspoons of baking soda. Consider what’s at stake here – the satisfaction of your cravings – and add another teaspoon to put a bit of fluff into these fellas.

Then grab a decent pinch of salt, being the fancy kind from the sea that required you to grind into your fingertips a little. I’m sure other salt is fine, but using fancy salt makes me feel good about myself.

Next, get two tablespooons of brown sugar and four teaspoons of ground-up lemon myrtle stuff – I think they’re leaves, but I don’t actually know.

Then get two heaped tablespoons of margarine. I felt this recipe called for marge instead of butter, even though I haven’t got either the baking nor the chemistry background required to understand why. Plus, I was trying to get rid of the stuff to clear space in the fridge.

Rub the shameful butter alternative into the crumbs until you have something that looks like wet, dirty sand.

Dump in one beaten egg and mix.

Now add like three tablespoons of milk and stir again.

Add a cup of dry, un-pulverised oats.

Next, fret that it looks too dry and far too dense. Remember that you have another egg in the fridge you need to get rid of because it’s slightly cracked and therefore can’t be boiled for breakfast.

Decide to get a bit of phat air in there by chucking it in the food processor you haven’t yet put away, pulsing it until it’s all bubbly.

Dump this in, mix and then add another two heaped tablespoons of milk (of course I know that liquid cannot heap and that this is a illogical instruction that requires the follower to defy the laws of nature, but it’s my way of saying that I was overzealous in pouring the milk in the spoon and a bit dribbled over but I’m not sure how much).

Mix.

Then fret that it’s too wet and add another half a cup of oats. Yes, this recipe requires a metric buttload of oats. I’ve started buying them in bulk.

Get tired of all this wetting and drying and decide that it’s time to be bold, dammit.

You lump the mixture into sloppy balls, whack them on a baking tray and chuck them in the oven.

Check them after about 10 minutes, rotating the tray.

Stick them back in for another five minutes. Let the timer go off but be distracted for about two or three minutes before you remember the lumps of goodness at risk of burning into crispy humiliation.

Now I’m usually a massive goo lover. I love my dough  as raw as my emotions but in this instance, you want to let these babies go slightly brown. In fact, you want a bit of crumbly crunch to them. Trust me on this.

Also, even weirder, the finished product doesn’t actually need to be smeared with butter. In fact, added butter kind of spoils it. That was very hard for me to write, but I felt it was important to add.

Let them cool slightly before biting into one and just let yourself feel a comfort you’ve not felt before. It’s like if the nicest, cuddliest person you knew was somehow inside your abdomen and was giving your stomach one of their famous hugs. Of course, this is very sad because this grandmother figure has found herself in quite a difficult and frankly horrifying position, but at least your tum feels great.