Recently I discovered Nairn's Oat Cakes, thanks to Food Bloggers Canada and Nairn's. My family had the opportunity to sample a number of their products and our overall opinion is that we like them!
The Nairn's Product Family
The crackers are not as crisp and flaky as a traditional North American cracker, and they have a distinctive oat flavour (of course). We didn't do anything fancy with our cracker sampling - just some assorted cheese and deli meats to let the flavours and textures of the oat cakes shine through.
We really (I mean really) enjoyed the cookies. In particular the Mixed Berry Oat Cookies were a hit with The Kid and The Husband. We took them a few places on our sampling day - including up a mountain and then to the beach. The cookies come bundled with 5 to a pack, and I was suprised that they weren't totally smashed to bits after being in my pack and then in the beach bag. I also really liked the Dark Chocolate Chip Oat Cookies - they have just a touch of sweetness - however they don't make great beach treats (melting chocolate and sand!).
No better place for a cookie break than sitting on a ridge overlooking Kelowna!
I have to say though, my favourite were the Stem Ginger Oat Cookies. They were too gingery for The Kid but I thought they were fantastic - crisp cookies with bits of ginger - love it!
It made me wonder though, what else could I use these cookies for? Then it hit me - how about as a base for ice cream deserts?
First step was pulling out my favourite summer cookbook - The Ice Cream Bible by Marilyn Linton & Tanya Linton - and whipping up some home made cherry ice cream with fresh Okanagan Cherries.
I love how the pureed cherry swirls into the cream mixture.
I made two different individual deserts. Using the Stem Ginger Oat Cookies as a base I let the ice cream soften slightly and then spooned it on to the cookies to form mini-pies. I nestled each mini pie into a cupcake liner and set back into the freezer to firm up. I'm not an expert at this, so The Kid has renamed these Ice Cream Balls. They turned out more domes shape then pie shaped. I do love how the ginger and cherry work together though, with the ginger offsetting some of the sweetness of the ice cream. They are a light and refreshing individual desert.
Ok, it's not the prettiest desert but it is tasty!
I also used a couple of the Dark Chocolate Chip Oat Cookies to make mini ice cream sandwhiches. I was worried that the cookie would be too hard after being frozen and it would be difficult to eat. Turns out they worked perfectly as the "bread" in the ice cream sandwhich. I found that the chocolate overpowered the cherry ice cream though, so next time I'll just use vanilla ice cream.
Nairn's cookies and oat crackers can be found at most major grocery stores in Canada. Find out more about Nairn's here!
Disclosure: I was not compensated for this post, however Nairn's did provide samples for my review. All opinions are my own and not influenced in any way.
The ginger ones are fantastic, aren't they? I gave some to my parents and they were fighting over the chocolate ones!
Posted by: Teresa | 08/03/2014 at 03:07 PM