My introduction to cereal, as I recall, came in the form of a little blue packet of Golden Morn. One of my earliest memories is of waking up early in the morning at age five, running into my living room and nestling into the corner of an armchair to watch the Smurfs with a bowl of my favourite stuff.
If you haven’t tried it before, let alone heard of it, you’ll be thanking me soon enough.
Golden Morn is a Nestlé brand Nigerian cereal made from locally sourced whole grain maize and soybeans. If you’re outside Nigeria, ask for it at your local Nigerian/African store. And if that fails, there’s always Google. It’s definitely worth the effort.
So yesterday, while sitting down for my first bowl in far too long, my taste buds were bouncing somewhere between the start of a rainbow and a pot of gold when the Golden Morn cookie idea dawned on me. Not only did it sound genius – as anything Golden Morn flavoured undoubtedly would – but it would be a piece of cake. So my friend Sonia and I went to town at a grocery store in Lekki (Lagos) for a ton of flavour options, and after much deliberation settled on the following three combinations:
1.Bounty and nutella
2.Pistachio, honey and vanilla
3.Peanut butter, chocolate chip and vanilla
Certain these flavours would go well with our Golden Morn base, we went to work. And boy did it work. After playing around with different nutella proportions, oven temperatures, and enough butter to make Paula Dean shudder, we developed a must-try recipe, and the cookies were a hit. Give it a whirl! I’d love to hear how yours turn out
Base Recipe Ingredients
Yields 2 dozen
¾ cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 ½ cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups Golden Morn
Bounty and Nutella
1 bounty chocolate bar, softened
1 tablespoon nutella
Pistachio, honey and vanilla
¼ cup raw pistachios, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons honey
1 teapoon vanilla extract
Peanut butter, chocolate chip and vanilla
2 tablespoons peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons chocolate chips
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F).
2.In large mixing bowl, cream butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla extract. Separately combine flour, baking soda and salt. Stir flour mix into butter mix. Add Golden morn and mix together until well incorporated and no longer sticks to hands.
3. Separate dough into three portions.
4.Bounty and nutella: cream bounty bar with nutella; Pistachio, honey and vanilla: mix pistachios, honey and vanilla; Peanut butter, chocolate and vanilla: mix peanut butter, vanilla extract and chocolate chips.
5. Combine one of each Golden Morn cookie dough portion with one flavour combo and mix until no longer sticky (add more flour if too sticky). You should have three different cookie doughs. Cut roughly into 2 ½” x 1” pieces.
6. Grease a baking sheet and spread pieces two inches apart. Try to make as evenly sized as possible so they cook at the same rate.
7. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes until golden brown then let cool on baking sheet for five minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool.
