I’ve always thought that when they say food and memory are connected they meant more in the sense that when you eat a food it reminds you of being in a particular place and time. The same way listening to music can make you feel young again (and you can remember all the words from a song you haven’t heard in years), or walking past someone on the street wearing the same perfume or cologne of someone you used to know can remind you of your 6th grade teacher or first boyfriend.

Anyway, my brain has this uncanny knack for remembering all things food. Flick past a recipe in a book or magazine and I can remember it; not the exact measurements but the feeling of it, or for whom the recipe would work best (specific to the person’s dietary requirements), or the type of moment I think it would be most lovely to eat it in. Sometime, a year or two later, it will pop into my head as being just the right thing to make. I can also remember your coffee order if I ordered you one a year ago, or how you take your tea… not quite super powers, but some (especially those awaiting a coffee) may consider it a gift.

I wish I had the memory to hold as many real life moments as I do thoughts on food. If I could, I would free up some of the brain space currently occupied by recipes, and devote more room to holding on to the little moments that make life feel really good. Especially those days that are unexpectedly special, they’re the best. I don’t know if brains work like hard-drives and run out of storage but, based on how mine works, sometimes I suspect so.

I guess we are just all different and amazing in our own ways and, depending on our passions, have wonderful (sometimes weird) minds capable of many things. Some people are great with numbers or dates or stories; I can never remember a book I’ve already read until I am reading it again, and am hopeless with anything to do with history, no matter how many times I’ve tried to learn it.

I can however put my hand exactly on which cookbook has that recipe you thought sounded good one day a year ago, and which seems like it might just be the perfect thing to eat right now. Funnily enough, once I’ve made the recipe I can’t always remember when or where we ate it… my mind seems to prioritise remembering to make it one day, rather than the actual enjoying of it in real life. Minds are mysterious things.

These cookies are inspired by a recipe I flicked past a year or two ago that stuck in the back of my mind, stored at the ready for when the time was right. It’s based on a blueberry cookie by Green Kitchen Stories from their cookbook Green Kitchen Travels, which is full of food dreams and wonderful family adventures. They made a cookie inspired by a great vegan one they ate at a bakery in New York; they’re full of ingredients good enough to eat for breakfast.

Last week it was cake for breakfast, this week it’s cookies. I’m okay with that.

One thing I can never do is leave a recipe alone, so this is my take on those cookies, replacing a few of the ingredients and changing it up a little bit. The blueberries have been swapped with raspberries and apricots soaked in rooibos tea; I took out the extra sweetening (the apricot sweetened tea providing all the sweetness needed) and skipped a step to make it even easier (although it was pretty easy to begin with). The result is a quick and tasty cookie, good enough for breakfast.

This recipe finally came into being when I was cleaning out the cupboard and found some dried apricots in a jar that had been there for *quite some time*. Hello little apricots, I’ve got just the recipe for you; I’ve been keeping it in the back of my mind all this time. Those blueberry cookies I flicked past a year ago would be just the home for you, surely.

It was time for those apricots to be liberated, and finally eaten.

Raspberry, Apricot + Rooibos Cashew Butter Cookies

inspired by Green Kitchen Stories

You can easily skip the tea soaking step if your dried apricots are still lovely and plump and they haven’t been lingering in the back of the cupboard for close to a year. If you do, replace the 1/2 cup of tea (the amount of liquid left over after the apricots have re-plumped) with 1/2 cup of milk of your choice.

You could also substitute the cashew butter for any nut butter of your choice; I have a deep, primal love for cashew butter – must be all those feel good, brain supporting properties of cashews…. if only eating more of these cookies could help with the other parts of my memory…

130g (1/2 cup) dried apricots
3/4 cup hot, strongly brewed rooibos tea (optional)

150g (1 1/2cups) oats – or 150g oat flour
100g (2/3 cup) buckwheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla powder
290g (1 cup) cashew butter

130g (1 cup) frozen raspberries

Slice the apricots and put them into a small bowl. Make the rooibos tea and pour it over the apricots, allowing them to soak for 10 minutes, whilst you get on with the rest of the recipe.

Preheat the oven to 180°C / 360°F / Gas Mark 4. Line two baking trays with baking paper.

In a blender or food processor, blitz the oats until they turn into flour. Tip the oat flour in a medium sized bowl.

Drain the tea from the apricots into the oats flour, and set the apricots aside. Add the buckwheat flour, baking powder, vanilla and  cashew butter into the bowl and mix until well combined.

Fold through the raspberries and apricots, roll a heaped tablespoon of the mixture into a ball between the palms of your hands. The mixture will be sticky, but good. Place the balls of dough onto the lined baking tray allowing some room between each cookie.

Keep rolling until you have used up all the mixture and flatten the cookies slightly using flat fingers.

Bake in the oven for 15 – 20 minutes, or until the cookies are golden.

These cookies are vegan and gluten free. I’m a huge fan of using nut butter as a luscious ingredient in baked goodies of all kinds; it makes things soft, yet chewy and kind of pillowy, if you know what I mean. If you’re keen on using nut butter in baking, then try out my Hazelnut, Dark Chocolate and Blackberry Blondies, an all time favourite according to everyone I’ve made them for. And if you’re interested in using food as an easy, every day form of preventative medicine, this article by Health Ambition lists ten great ingredients that can help support your body during times of stress – find the right foods that work for you and enjoy them any day of the week!