Walnut & Pumpkin Seed Scottish Oatcakes

Walnut & Pumpkin Seed Scottish Oatcakes are rustic, wholesome savoury biscuits or crackers. Perfect with cheese, pâté, nut butters, or to eat alongside soups, they’re incredibly easy to make and will keep for a month.

The main ingredient is oats: make your own oatmeal by whizzing up porridge oats or rolled oats in a food processor or blender.

Chopped walnuts and pumpkin seeds marry perfectly with the nutritious oats while optional walnut oil intensifies the nutty flavour.

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SCOTTISH OATCAKES

I started making my own Scottish Oatcakes last year and was pleasantly surprised at how easy they were. Containing just oats, salt, olive oil (or butter) plus water, my homemade ones were head and shoulders above mass produced ones.

Although these traditional biscuits or crackers will keep for up to a month, I found myself making them more often. So good, we couldn’t keep our hands off them!

Great with cheese or instead of toast at breakfast, you can eat Scottish Oatcakes with things like soup too. Then, this year, I started playing around with different flavoured oatcakes.

First off were my Cheesy Scottish Oatcakes which were a game changer. The simple addition of cheese made these great to eat all on their own and not just as an accompaniment.

And now, let me introduce you to the latest incarnation: Walnut & Pumpkin Seed Scottish Oatcakes.

OATS & OATMEAL

Actually, scrap that. Let me first tell you about the oats or oatmeal you’ll need to make the oatcakes.

I know from questions I’ve received on recipes containing oats (especially my hugely popular Homemade Digestive Biscuits) that many people find oats, oatmeal and all their various guises really confusing. It’s particularly baffling for Brits looking at US recipes to read that ‘oatmeal’ seems to be what we call porridge.

However, here in the UK oatmeal simply means a flour that’s made from oats. It’s usually sold as fine, medium or coarse, although you’ll not often find it in supermarkets. You can see examples of all three in the image above (I buy mine from a local wholefood shop) along with rolled oats scattered about.

But if you can’t find oatmeal, you can easily make your own from porridge oats or rolled oats.

Simply whizz up the oats in a blender or food processor until they’re the fineness you like.

For Walnut & Pumpkin Seed Scottish Oatcakes I recommend you use finely ground oats or fine oatmeal. That’s because the nuts and seeds already give a rough texture, along with the whole rolled or porridge oats we’ll include. The finer oatmeal will help bring everything together and stop the oatcakes being too crumbly.

WALNUTS, PUMPKIN SEEDS & WALNUT OIL

With each batch of these oatcakes, I found myself adding more and more walnuts and pumpkin seeds!

I love the way their earthy flavours marry with the rustic, wholesome-tasting oats. So that they blend well with the other ingredients, you’ll need to first roughly chop them.

For my traditional Scottish Oatcakes, you can use either olive oil or butter. For my Cheesy Scottish Oatcakes I recommended butter. While you could use either for Walnut & Pumpkin Seed Scottish Oatcakes, I hope you’ll get yourself some walnut oil.

There are a huge variety of walnut oils out there, some with eye-watering prices. But for baking, the cheaper ones are fine. These are usually made by infusing other oils with walnuts rather than being a true walnut oil. I think that even these cheaper oils add extra nutty flavour to the oatcakes and a pleasantly light texture too.

MAKING THE DOUGH

To make the dough, start by putting the dry ingredients in a bowl. For the oatcakes you see in this post I included whole rolled oats, fine oatmeal, plus whizzed up rolled oats as I didn’t have quite enough bought fine oatmeal.

Also in there are the chopped walnuts and pumpkin seeds plus a little salt and black pepper. These are stirred together before we add the wet ingredients.

Besides the walnut oil, we stir in boiling water to bring the dough together.

Then it’s just a case of rolling the dough and stamping out oatcakes with a cutter. I prefer to roll out on wholemeal flour as it’s less sticky. But use more oatmeal instead if you like. If you find the dough comes apart at the edges as you roll, just use your hands to push it together and keep going.

As always, gather the scraps after cutting out the oatcakes so you can make more. Do note though that oatmeal is quite ‘thirsty’ so you’ll probably need to add more water when bringing the dough scraps together to roll out again.

As you cut them out, place the oatcakes on a baking tray, lined with baking parchment if necessary.

Rolling out the dough 3-5 mm thick and using a 6-7 cm cutter should give you approximately 25 Walnut & Pumpkin Seed Scottish Oatcakes.

BAKING & STORING

You may have heard that walnut oil can go bitter if cooked at high temperatures. However, the oatcakes are baked at 180 C / 160 Fan / gas 4 so this shouldn’t be a problem. Unless you’ve rolled the dough thickly, the oatcakes should be golden and baked all the way through in 25 – 30 minutes.

Oven temperatures aren’t always accurate though, so I suggest you check after 15 minutes and turn the oven down if the oatcakes are browning too quickly.

To get even browning, I turn them over for the final five minutes.

Cool the oatcakes on a wire rack and transfer to an airtight container when completely cold. Stored like this, they should easily keep for a month.

SERVING

Like all oatcakes, Walnut & Pumpkin Seed Scottish Oatcakes are perfect with cheeses of all kinds.

Try them as a quick snack, in a packed lunch or picnic, or a more formal cheeseboard.

But I think these are especially good with nut butters too.

The oaty biscuits, studded with nuts and seeds, make a great base for almond, hazelnut or even good old peanut butter. (I wonder why walnut butter isn’t widely available? Maybe it’s that bitter issue again).

Other ways to enjoy these oatcakes include:

• eat alongside warming soups instead of bread
• forget the toast at breakfast and spread oatcakes with jam or marmalade
• serve with pâté or dips like hummus
• eat just as they are as a wholesome, nutritious snack

Have you made this recipe? Leave a comment below and don’t forget to rate it!

4 from 4 votes

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Walnut & Pumpkin Seed Scottish Oatcakes

Wholesome savoury biscuits or crackers that are perfect with cheese, pâté, nut butters, or to eat alongside soups.

Easy to make so long as you keep the dough moist, adding extra water as needed.

Course Snack, Bread, Cheese

Cuisine British, Vegetarian, Vegan, plant-based, Scottish

Keyword crackers, biscuits, oats

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes

Total Time 50 minutes

Servings 25 oatcakes (approx)

Author Moorlands Eater

Ingredients

• 140 g rolled oats or porridge oats
• 140 g fine oatmeal See Recipe Notes #1 and #2
• 100 g walnuts roughly chopped
• 30 g pumpkin seeds roughly chopped
• ¾ tsp salt
• ¼ tsp black pepper to taste
• 100-150 ml boiling water from a kettle
• 75 ml walnut oil olive oil or 75g melted butter can be substituted
• wholemeal flour for rolling out Recipe Note #2

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4.
2. Line 2 baking trays with baking parchment or greaseproof paper.

3. Mix in a bowl the oats, oatmeal, chopped walnuts and pumpkin seeds, salt and pepper.

4. Make a well in the centre then pour in 100ml of the boiling water plus the oil (or melted butter).

   Stir quickly to bring the mixture together into a firm dough. Add more boiling water as needed to prevent the dough becoming crumbly.

5. Dust your worksurface with wholemeal flour (or oatmeal: see Recipe Note #2) and transfer the dough onto it.

   Sprinkle the dough and a rolling pin with wholemeal flour or oatmeal and roll out the dough 3-5 mm thick. Note that sprinkling with lots of flour or oatmeal will make the dough drier so you may need to sprinkle with a little more water.

   If the dough starts to come apart at the edges, just push it back together with your hands.

6. Cut out oatcakes using a 6-7cm cutter then transfer to the baking trays.

   Bring together the scraps and re-roll to make more oatcakes until all the dough is used up.

   Tip: the oat dough can be very 'thirsty': you may need to add a little more water when bringing together the scraps.

7. Put the trays in the preheated oven and bake until the oatcakes are cooked all the way through: unless you've rolled the dough very thick or thin, they'll take 25-30 minutes.

   Tip 1: After 15 minutes, check that they're not browning too quickly and turn the oven temperature down if necessary.

   Tip 2: For even browning, you may wish to turn the oatcakes over for the final 5 minutes.

8. Transfer the oatcakes to a wire rack to cool.

   When completely cold, store in an airtight container. Should keep at least a month.

Recipe Notes

Note #1 To make your own fine oatmeal, whizz rolled oats or porridge oats in a food processor, blender or coffee mill until finely textured.

Note #2 If you want to roll out on oatmeal then you'll need more fine oatmeal. However, wholemeal flour is less sticky and makes rolling out easier.

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