Saturday, January 15, 2011

San Francisco Style Oat Cakes

Quite a few years ago I worked for a green business program teaching businesses how to set up and successfully use city composting and recycling bins. During this time I had one coffee shop I went in to often. They had these wonderful dense apricot oat cakes that I have never been able to forget...or find again.
I did a lot of searching online, and it turns out there are a few other people out there who are searching for the recipe and coming up with recipes of their own to try and recreate these oaty hockey pucks of joy. I have taken some of these other recipes, twisted them around and tweaked them till I have what I consider the closest thing.

SF Oat Cakes
3.5 cups Rolled oats
1.5 cups Flour
¼ teaspoon Baking powder
2/3 cup Plain yogurt
½ cup Sugar
½ cup Honey (or just use all sugar if you don't have honey)
1 teaspoon Vanilla
1 Egg
1 cup Dried fruit (I like using apricots, peaches, or a berry blend)

Thoroughly grind rolled oats in food processor or blender. Mix with flour and baking powder. Chop dried fruit into small pieces.
In a separate bowl, "cream" together yogurt, sugar, honey, egg, and vanilla. Add dried fruit. Combine wet and dry ingredients. The dough gets pretty stiff and is hard to mix. You may even have to knead it with your hands like bread dough!
Form dough in to roll about 12 inches long. Using a bread knife and a sawing motion, cut off 1 inch slices and place them on a non stick (or greased) cookie sheet.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 15 minutes.
Cool completely and store in refrigerator. These keep well and may be frozen.

18 comments:

  1. I love these- Thank you for the recipe. It is almost the same as my local coffee shop!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you for posting this recipe! Used to get these all the time near Lake Merritt, but now that I live in NYC, I cannot find a one! Have you tried using almond flour or some other gluten free version?

    ReplyDelete
  3. These look great. Can't wait to try them! (I've included them already in this morning's blog post:
    http://emersunrose.wordpress.com/2011/07/10/me-oatmeal-never/)

    ReplyDelete
  4. OOO, question for you: how much oat flour is the result of 3.5 cups of oats? I ask because I've already ground oats to bake with..... Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  5. OK, I decided to find out. Started with 3.5 cups of rolled oats and ended up with 3 cups of oat flour. Taa-daa!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks for figuring that out. I'm not super technical with my cooking.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Wow, these things have a cult following. I have been trying to find these for awhile. Can't wait to try this recipe.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Pretty dam close to the cakes at the Royal Ground coffee shop on Polk Street, SF. I loved this recipe, thanks. Creamy and fantastic with black coffee!

    A few notes: My dough ended up really sticky so I had to add flour to handle it. I don't remember tasting egg in the SF cakes, so I'll experiment without the egg since the cakes don't rise all that much anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thanks for the recipe. I used to have a similar one but misplaced it. I didn't remember mine having any regular sugar, but still only half a cup of honey. So I made this one without the sugar with plans to add it in the end if the dough didn't taste right. It tasted fine and the oat cakes were just as I remembered. Thanks again.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Great recipe! My husband had recently rediscovered these in the coffee houses and I love to bake. This is the closest attempt we have found. We tried 5 different recipe variation before finding this one.

    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Jave Beach Cafe in San Francisco in the sunset district has these-they are amazing!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Thank you!! I have been looking for a recipe for these for years but surprisingly "Dried Fruit and Oats Hockey Pucks" got me nowhere, lol. Really no other way to describe them... Again, thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  13. this looks great, while living in SF I ate these regularly! has anyone made these without egg?

    ReplyDelete
  14. I've been looking for a recipe for these for years, used to get them on Presidio/Sacramento, thank you!!

    ReplyDelete
  15. I have been looking for this recipe for a long time! When I lived in SF I used to buy these in the corner markets and coffee shops all the time! Love them even though they land like a brick in my stomach!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Folks-these come from The Ultimate Cookie Company in SF. They graciously ship (I live in Austin, TX). I had pined for these treats for years. I will definitely try the recipe!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Here is a link to the original oatcakes
    www.ultimatecookie.com/oatcakes.html

    ReplyDelete
  18. This is the true original and simply the best apricot oatcake around (made by California Suncakes, first named A Better Oatcake). Must try your recipe, because... well, yum!

    http://suncake.stores.yahoo.net/nutsnac1.html

    ReplyDelete