Oatmeal Cookies (with Options!)

This recipe was adapted from All Recipes and can be regular chocolate chip oatmeal cookies or tweaked with other delicious combinations.

Prep Time: 15 minutes Cook Time: 15 minutes (per sheet) Total Time: 30 minutes (+ chilling time)

Makes: 2 dozen cookies worthwhile size cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour (210 g)
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 cups old fashioned oats
• Add In’s –
  • 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips or M&M’s
  • 2/3 cup white chocolate chips & 2/3 cup dried tart cherries
  • Aim for about 1 – 1.5 cups of add-in’s

Instructions:

1. In your stand mixer, cream together softened butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until smooth and fluffy (about 4 minutes).* Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in vanilla.
2. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt; stir into the creamed mixture until just blended.
3. Mix in the oats and other add-ins you’ve chosen.
4. Put the cookie dough mixture into the fridge for 30 minutes before baking.**
5. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F
6. Drop by heaping spoonful onto parchment paper lined baking sheets
7. Bake for 12-15 minutes. The cookies should be mostly set with a bit of wobble left in their centers. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. If you are baking two sheets of cookies at once, I recommend using convection bake if possible and still rotating the sheets at about 7 minutes.

Tips & Tricks:

• *Really take your time creaming together butter and sugar. It should be light and fluffy before you start mixing in other ingredients because you don’t want to overmix the batter later (resulting in flat cookies). It is said that bakers often undermix their butter and sugar and overmix their flour. Mix in the dry ingredients until just incorporated.
• **Waiting the extra 30 minutes before putting the dough into the oven will give time for the butter in the mixture to firm up again. Putting the cookies right into the oven after mixing will result in flat, wide-spread, lacy cookies. Keep the dough in the fridge between batches if having to bake in multiple rounds.
• Wait the 5 minutes before transferring warm cookies to wire racks because they will be fragile right out of the oven. Cookies should be mostly cooked through, but not totally solid as they will continue to firm up while cooling. Don’t leave them to cool completely on the baking sheet though, they can be difficult to get off once cool.
• These cookies freeze really well so stash some away to enjoy later 🙂 Cookies should be able to last a couple months in the freezer in a proper container or freezer Ziploc bag.