GUBBEEN CHEESE OATCAKES (€3.95): Robert Ditty's oatcakes, made in his artisan bakery in Northern Ireland, are simply unrivalled. The chunky triangles of nutty, Co Armagh oats bound with buttermilk are so good they can be eaten unadorned, but a chunk of good farmhouse cheese on top makes a good thing great.
And now, with the launch of Gubbeen Farmhouse Cheese Oatcakes, you don't even need to slice the cheese to get that wonderful marriage of sweet oats and savoury cheese.
"They're my new baby," says Giana Ferguson, who has been making the award-winning cows' milk cheese with her husband Tom in west Cork since 1979. "Part of being an artisan producer is that we can't get bigger and bigger, we've got to get better and better, and develop sideways. The oatcakes are another product for us to sell. I met Robert Ditty at a Slow Food event in Belfast and it was a meeting of minds. I sent him some cheese and he made the oatcakes, and they were perfect from day one," Ferguson says
The oatcakes contain 18 per cent Gubbeen cheese, and there's Irish butter in them, too, so they're a healthy savoury snack. "I worry about children eating sticky cakes and things, so I'd like to get the oatcakes into lunchboxes, and I'd love to see them on sale in pubs instead of crisps and nuts."
With all that cheese already in the oatcakes, how best to eat them? "I like them with a soft goats' cheese like Ardsallagh, with chopped chives or capers, and they're great with smoked salmon. My son eats them with peanut butter."
Gubbeen Farmhouse Cheese Oatcakes recently got the thumbs up from the taste panel that tries every product before it goes on sale in the Avoca shops, and they are also on sale in cheese shops, good delis, and direct from the farm, where, for the month of June, a case of 12 boxes will cost you €36. Postage and courier delivery can be arranged. See www.gubbeen.com
For another way to get your daily oats, try Ditty's smoked oatcakes, made with oats smoked by Frank Hederman of Belvelly Smoke House.