It happens to even the most frugal of us: you’re out more than you thought you’d be, you cook less than usual or you’ve even been unwell and haven’t been able to stomach something as simple as a sandwich.
Suddenly, before you know it, you have stale bread. Not quite mouldy but not quite as alluring as soft, fresh bread. Now it seems that you have two options: toss it or toast it.
However, according to the award-winning chef, Chantelle Nicholson, there is another more inventive option for your stale bread and even better, it can be frozen in batches so there’s no chance of food waste!
How to make delicious cookies with leftover, stale bread
So, if you have leftover bread and carrots, you can actually combine the two to make around 8-10 cookies. If you’re just baking for one or don’t want to cook that many, you can still make up the dough balls and pop them in the freezer for next time your sweet tooth is craving a little sugar.
The ingredients you’ll need are:
- 100g of butter
- 120g of dark brown soft sugar
- 40g of almond butter
- 1 carrot, grated
- 1/2 tsp of baking soda
- pinch of salt
- 80g of dark chocolate, chopped
- 40g of toasted almonds, chopped
- 120g of self-raising flour
- 40g of day-old bread, toasted and turned into breadcrumbs
Now, for the method:
- Brown the butter then dissolve the sugar in it.
- Add the almond butter and grated carrot and let it cool a little.
- Mix in the bicarbonate of soda and salt.
- Add the almonds, chocolate, flour and breadcrumbs and allow to cool.
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees, fan.
- Shape the mix into 8-10 balls and place on a baking sheet.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes until cooked through.
The importance of reducing food waste
Of course, life happens and sometimes food waste is unavoidable but in the UK, according to Business Waste, we produce the highest amount of food waste in Europe with 9.5 million tonnes of food going to waste in a single year, despite 8.4 million people in the UK living in food poverty.
This is a global issue, too, with a staggering ⅓ of all food produced globally going to waste.
According to the Energy Saving Trust, “this scale of food waste leads to habitat destruction, decreased biodiversity and overuse of land and water.”
“To combat the climate emergency and help protect our environment, we all need to reduce the amount of food we waste.”
Plus, if it’s an excuse for more cookies, I’m in.