Crispy Salted Oatmeal White Chocolate Cookies

First things first: Those chocolate oatmeal bars from the last post were absolutely heavenly. I ate the entire pan myself (with the exception of maybe three or four) by Sunday night, which I thought would be a valid reason to take Monday off of work. As if I needed anymore sweets, I baked these Crisp Salted Oatmeal White Chocolate cookies. In my defense, I gave most of the batch to my Nana and only ate two or three or six. I should point out that this picture is not mine (as you can tell by the good quality), I got it from smitten kitchen where I also found the recipe. My own personal pictures aren't uploading correctly and I thought whats a post without a picture? people want to see what their about to create, right? right.

Right off the bat this recipe interested me for two reasons: 1) I'm a huge fan of white chocolate. As gnarly as it may sound to some, I could eat a bar of white baking chocolate by itself and enjoy every bite.  2) I'm a salt fiend. True to the name, these cookie were very crispy. I'm more of a soft and chewy cookie gal, but these were still very pleasant. The bursts of sea salt on top of the oatmeal goodness was divine and a very welcome flare to my taste buds.

Oatmeal Joy

The past few weeks I've been baking for my moms faculty meetings on Wednesday mornings. I've made some muffins, fabulous buttermilk banana bread, and I even tried my hand at a Tres Leches Cake recipe from Food Network Magazine to celebrate Cinco De Mayo. Well it was a Tres Disaster. I briefly debated buying more ingredients and testing the recipe again with the hope that it would come out superb the second time around but I quickly realized that that probably wouldn't be the case. So what did I do? I baked oatmeal cookies. Not very festive, but definitely more delicious than any Tres Leches cake (I stand by this statement). 

Oatmeal Cookies
Adapted from Joy of Baking

3 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1 cup raisins (or dried cranberries, dried cherries, chocolate chips, etc..)
3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temp
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (I used 1 tsp)
1 large egg
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda

1. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. Beat the unsalted butter and sugar until creamy and smooth in the bowl of your electric mixer or with a hand mixer. 
3. Add egg and vanilla extract, beat until well combined. 
4. In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, and ground cinnamon. Add flour mixture to the cream mixture and beat until well incorporated.

5. Stir in the oats and raisins.  

6. For large cookies, use 1/4 cup of batter and space the cookies about 2 inches apart on the baking sheet. Then wet your hand and flatten the cookies slightly with your fingers.

7. Bake for about 12 - 15 minutes at 350 degrees F or until light golden brown around the edges but still soft and a little wet in the centers. 

These were absolutely delicious although I was only able to eat one since they were for others. It was a good practice in self control. The cinnamon really gives these cookies such a wonderful burst of flavor, I'm very impressed.  My mom said that all of the teachers raved about them. I might have to make a batch for myself tonight :)

Cookie Redemption

Thank you Martha. Thank you for helping me make up for the previous cookie catastrophe with these banana bread like chocolate chunk cookies. Now I should point out that I used semisweet chocolate chips because they were already in the pantry. I can only imagine that using chunks of a chocolate baking bar take these cookie up a notch. Not only were they simple to bake but they were so deliciously moist and perfectly textured that I couldn't stop reaching for another one!

Banana-Walnut Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Adapted from marthastewart.com

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 large egg
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup mashed ripe banana (about 1 large)
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
8 ounces semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped into 1/4-inch chunks*
1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts (about 2 ounces), toasted

1.Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Whisk together flours, salt, and baking soda in a small bowl; set aside.

2.Put butter and sugars into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy. Reduce speed to low. Add egg and vanilla; mix until combined. Mix in banana.

3.Add flour mixture; mix until just combined. Stir in oats, chocolate chunks, and walnuts.


4.Using a 1 1/2-inch ice cream scoop, drop dough onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper, spacing about 2 inches apart.
 
5.Bake cookies, rotating sheets halfway through, until golden brown and just set, 12 to 13 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks 5 minutes. Transfer cookies to wire racks; let cool completely (if you can resist!)

be still my beating heart

I certainly can't think of a better way to spend a Thursday night. Usually when I bake sugar cookies  I use Alton Brown's  recipe. This time I used the recipe from I Am Baker and, no offense to Alton, but these were knee slapping good! I think I may have found a new go-to sugar cookie recipe...

White Chocolate, Chocolate Cookies

1 3/4 cups flour
1 2/4 cups cocoa powder
1 cup white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 tsps. baking soda
1 cup butter
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups white chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease cookie sheets.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until light a fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beat well with each additon. Add the vanilla.
3. In a smaller bowl, combine the flour cocoa and baking soda. Gradually add to the creamed mixture, scrapping down the sides of the bowl with a spatula.
4. Bake for 10-12 minutes until fluffy but still soft. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for a few minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completley.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate chip cookies? Yes, please!

It seems that every blogger/baker has their perfect go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe that they swear by. I haven't been fortunate enough to find the recipe that I can in perfect confidence call "the best" and in an attempt to do so have decided to work my way through as many chocolate chip cookie recipe renditions as possible until I find that "wow" factor.  To me the perfect chocolate chip cookie would be moist, extremely chewy, and of course extra chocolaty. I was inspired while eating chocolate chip cookies baked with a recipe from honeydukes pastries. These cookies were delicious and I was very pleased with how thick and chewy they turned out. In her blog she writes that she came out with 16 cookies. As for me, the recipe only gave me 12 cookies, but they were so big that each cookie was kind of a two in one deal.

Ingredients:

6 tablespoons white sugar
1/2 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
1 large egg
6 tablespoons packed light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (6 ounces) chocolate chunks or chips
1 cup chopped nuts *

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. Using an electric mixer, beat the salt, butter, sugars, and vanilla in a medium bowl until well combined.
3. Beat in the egg and scrape down the bowl using a rubber spatula and beat for a few more seconds.
4. In a smaller bowl, whisk together the flour and baking soda. 
5. Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and mix on low speed until absorbed. 
6. Combine the chocolate chunks and nuts* into a small bowl and stir into the dough.
7. Shape the dough into 1 1/2 inch balls and drop them about 3 inches apart onto greased baking sheets (the recipe says ungreased, but I greased them out of habit).
8. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until edges are golden. Let sit for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

 * I chose not to add the nuts.

Cherry White Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

I started making these cookies last year during Christmas (what better time to make cookies?) and they were a hit with everyone! The original recipe calls for dried cranberries but I've never been a fan so I substitue them with dried cherries which gives them this wonderful sweetness with every bite. I made them again last night for my brother and dad as a thank you for helping me move new furniture into my bedroom earlier this week. What better way to say thank you and show someone how much you love them than baking for them?

1 cup AP flour

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1 cup quick cooking oats

9 tbsp. butter [room temperature]

1/2 cup dark brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/2 cup dried cranberries

3/4 cup white chocolate chips

1/2 roughly chopped pecans (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit and line two cookie sheets with foil or parchment paper.

2. Measure flour, baking powder, salt, and oats into a bowl. Put butter and sugars in seperate bowl and beat together until creamy. Then beat in the egg and vanilla extract.

3. Beat in the flour mixture, then cherries, pecans, and white chocolate chips.

4. Roll tablespoonfuls of dough into balls. Place them on cookie sheet and sqush down with a fork.

5. Bake for 15 minutes or until the cookies start tinging a pale gold.

You won't regret making these. The recipe yields about 24 and we're already down to the remaining 4 cookies in our house. We have to litereally make a conscious effort to walk away from them.

Chocolate Chip Pudding Cookies

The original recipe comes from http://natalieskillercuisine.com/ and they are wonderful! I didn't make any changes to the recipe, I followed her ingredients and instructions exactly and they were delicious. The pudding made them very soft and chewy - which is the way I prefer my cookies. And rolling the dough into little balls before baking them gave them the perfect shape and fluffy texture which made it easier to put scoops of ice cream inbetween them for munchy purposes.

- 1 cup butter [2 sticks] room temperature

- 3/4 cup brown sugar

- 1/4 cup ganualted sugar

- 2 eggs

- 1 tsp vanilla

- 2 1/4 All Purpose flour

- 1 vanilla pudding mix [3.4 oz]

- 1 tsp baking soda

- 1 tsp salt

- 1 3/4 choclate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine the butter and sugars together in a mixing bowl until creamed then add in the eggs one at a time followed by the tsp of vanilla. In a seperate bowl combine the dry ingredients (flour, pudding mix, baking soda, and salt). Add these to the wet mixture and mix until well combined. Fold in chocolate chips.

Scoop out tablespoons of the dough and gently roll into a ball, leaving space inbetween each cookie. Bake for 11 minutes (took me around 15) and remove from the oven. Let cool and enjoy!