Since We’re All Stuck At Home… Let’s Bake Cookies!

I remember in Friends TV show Phoebe said that she made the best oatmeal-raisin cookies in the world, but she didn’t make them that often because it ‘would be unfair to other cookies’. This is kind of the relationship I have with these cookies 😂 I love this recipe for how simple it is and the result is superb, but don’t make them that often. This time I made them I decided to photograph the process so I could share it with you. I’ll tell the recipe in detail, so less talk – more action!

First I’ll show what we’ll get:

Ingredients (21 cookie, 7cm in diameter each)

110g soft room temperature unsalted butter
90g quick-cooking oatmeal flakes
130g white flour
140g white sugar OR 50g white sugar + 90g brown sugar for a richer flavor (that’s the combination I usually use)
1 egg
5g baking powder OR, if you’ll be using brown sugar, 5g baking powder+a pinch of baking soda to neutralize the acid in brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon OR pumpkin spice mix OR you can skip the spices altogether if you wish
1/4 tsp salt
a drop of vanilla extract OR 1/2 tsp vanilla sugar OR skip if you wish

For spices I used a teaspoon of this mix:

Dry Ingredients:

First, check your oatmeal flakes: if they are gentle to a point where they crumble in your fingers, they’ll be perfect for cookies. If your oatmeal flakes are hard and rubbery, chop them up in a food processor – not to a point of flour, but just to make them smoother.

In a dry bowl mix flour, oatmeal flakes, spices, baking powder, baking soda (if you’re using brown sugar) until combined and put it aside.

Wet Ingredients:

Place soft room temperature butter in a large bowl and start creaming it with a mixer. If you don’t have a mixer, you can use a whisk or wooden spoon to cream butter – it’ll take, of course, longer than if you’re using a mixer, but it’s possible. Gradually add sugar and salt (and vanilla sugar if you’re using it) to the butter and continue creaming it until all sugar is added and the mixture gets fluffy. At this stage add an egg and beat the mixture for a few more minutes more until well combined.

After that it’s time to add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Add dry ingredients to butter, sugar, salt, and egg mixture until combined and leave the dough for 10min to rest – oatmeal flakes will soak the moisture up and get soft. The dough will be soft, but not sticky:

Baking!

Turn the oven on to preheat it to 180C or 350F. Line the baking tray with baking paper. Take small pieces of dough (mine were 25-26g each and made 7cm cookies in diameter) and roll them into balls the size of a hazelnut. Then place them on the tray and press them down to 5mm thick circles, leaving at least 5cm distance between them – they’ll melt a bit during baking. They don’t have to be perfect – the only goal is to make them more or less uniform in size because we need to ensure that they’ll all bake evenly:

These cookies can be very crunchy or very soft depending on how long you’ll choose to bake them for. I like mine to be crunchy on the outside and fluffy and soft on the inside, so I baked them for 8-9min, the tray has to be on the middle rack, no fan.

The middle oven rack is the happy place where air is circulating, the heat sources are evenly distributed, and tops and bottoms aren’t in danger of burning or browning too quickly. It’s the perfect place for cakes, cookies, and brownies to stay and bake (Baking 101)

My oven is a little crazy and it bakes really intensely and not very evenly, so you might need more or less time depending on your oven. You’ll have to adjust the time of baking if you decide to make them smaller or larger. Just check on the cookies – they’re ready when the outer rim gets caramel color. These were baking for 9min and the top is also caramel color now, still very soft:

Attention! Cookies will be very very soft after you take them out – it’s normal! Let them cool on the tray.

Lemon Glaze

50g powdered sugar
1tbsp fresh lemon juice
water if needed

Mix powdered sugar with lemon juice. Add lemon juice gradually until you get to the consistency you like. If you like thick glaze, add less juice and if you like thin glaze, add a tiny bit of water or more juice besides the juice to make the glaze runnier. Don’t worry – the glaze won’t be very sour due to the sweetness of powdered sugar. I added a tablespoon of lemon glaze and 1/2tsp of water to get the consistency I like – it dries quickly and doesn’t create too thin of a layer.

Wait for cookies to cool off until slightly warm or completely cool. I used silicone spatula to apply the glaze on cookies – you can use a spoon or simply drizzle the glaze on the cookies. 10min later the glaze is dry and cookies are ready!

Finished cookies:

How about you – do you like oatmeal cookies and oatmeal in general in baked goods? As always, I’m looking forward to reading and responding to your comments 💕💕💕

Wishing you all a lovely time of the day wherever you are and stay safe ❤️

Alex

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Other recipes:

Chewy white chocolate cookies that actually taste like white chocolate 😋