Crunchy Oatmeal Cookies

Posted by foodess on Wed 4th of Mar, 2009 02:37:22 PM

I’m not known for my patience in the kitchen. Just ask my mother who spent many years firmly insisting that the oven not be used like a microwave (which did little to stop my hungry teenage self from cranking it to 500 degrees in hopes of enjoying my frozen pizza in 3 minutes or less). I blame this lack of patience for my previous failed attempts at making crunchy oatmeal cookies. The occasional cookie recipe says to bake them for 18-20 minutes… but who can wait that long? Cookies are only supposed to take 8-12 minutes! It actually took me several tries at playing around with ingredients - using white sugar instead of brown, using a higher butter-to-flour ratio, etc. - before I had a duh moment and realized that the crunchiness potential exists in every cookie, if you just leave leave it in the oven long enough.

Don’t get me wrong - I love the occasional sturdy oatmeal cookie, toothsome and full of chewy raisins. And I am firmly on the side of “soft and chewy” when it comes to most other types of cookie. But for one reason or another, a delicately crispy, buttery oatmeal cookie - with little bits of chocolate and raisins - really floats my boat.

What I like about this cookie is that you can use whole wheat flour, or oat flour, or whatever hearty flour wags your tail, and it tastes like it belongs (then again, maybe everything tastes like it belongs with a good hit of butter and sugar). This recipe is very versatile, and you can toss in lots of things - sunflower seeds, chopped pecans, flax seeds, dried cranberries, raisins, currants, milk-, dark-, or white-chocolate, coconut. Whatever makes your skirt fly up.

8 Responses

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   1

   Kevin - March 7th, 2009 at 11:14 am

   Those oatmeal cookies look good!

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   2

   nicola - March 7th, 2009 at 1:16 pm

   i baked these the other night. they were delicious! my add-ins were flax seeds, almonds (i smashed them myself so they were very crunchy and rustic, mm!) and raisins. they were a win. except in my oven they were beginning to burn on the bottom by 18 minutes!

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   3

   foodess - March 9th, 2009 at 10:10 am

   Hi Nicola,
   It may not be your oven. The colour of your baking pan makes a humongous difference in how the cookies bake. The darker the cookie sheet, the darker the bottoms of your cookies. I baked two batches of the same cookie, and the ones baked on a slightly darker sheet were significantly darker on the bottom.

   If you only have dark baking sheets, lining them with shiny aluminum foil fixes the burned-bottom problem. A light surface reflects heat, a dark surface absorbs it.

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   nicola - March 10th, 2009 at 3:14 pm

   hmm, thanks for the advice!! i will try again with foil! my baking sheet is definitely dark - it’s very old :p

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   5

   CookieGirl - November 6th, 2009 at 10:37 am

   This recipe has no eggs and makes very few cookies. They are in the oven now, will let you know how they come out!

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   6

   CookieGirl - November 6th, 2009 at 11:21 am

   These turned out great! Not enough of them at all, I would triple the recipe!

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   OldWorldUkranianCook - December 31st, 2009 at 12:27 pm

   So good. Next time (because I am all about the raisins in my oatmeal cookies) am trying rum extract in place of vanilla. Will let you know if that worked.

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   8

   OldWorldUkranianCook - January 14th, 2010 at 5:44 pm

   Needed nutmeg to make rum extract work.

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