How to Cook Everything Project: Oatmeal Cookies

I don’t believe I’ve made oatmeal cookies from scratch before. But then again, I’ve never really been a fan of oatmeal cookies. Sure, I’d eat them if they were there, but I don’t go out of my way to buy them.

Okay… I have bought the Soft Batch ones. But they were on sale. And I had a coupon.

You may be wondering if I added any raisins or other dried fruit to these cookies. The answer to this is no. Not because I don’t like them (and I do… I really do), it’s just that I didn’t have any around. But I still have about ten pounds of oats in the pantry, begging to be used in some form.

Some thoughts I had in making these cookies:

1. The amount of oats called for in the recipe does not seem to be enough. When I picture oatmeal cookies, I see something studded with oats. This… wasn’t. When eating them, there was no discernable oatiness. The cause of the missing oat flavor? Possibly because…
2. I may have used too much flour. There was no mention of sifting the flour in the recipe, but I had this nagging feeling that I should do it anyways. But I didn’t. And I realized my mistake with the first bite – slightly chalky… which made me think  there was too much flour. Along with sifting, I think weighing out the flour would have been the right may to make these cookies, instead of using the traditional measuring cups.
3. I am not comfortable when the recipe calls for “ungreased baking sheets.” Ungreased = sticking = difficult cookie removal = sad me. There’s a stick of butter in that cookie dough, but not enough to prevent possible cookie catastrophes. As a compromise, I lined the sheets with wax paper (ran out of parchment) and peeled the cookies off easily.
4. These cookies taste a lot better the next day. That lost oat flavor I mentioned in #1? It showed itself the next day. And my taste buds may have been playing tricks on me, but those cookies seemed sweeter the next day as well.

I think the next time I try this recipe, I’m going to swap out some of the regular flour and add in some oat flour… see if it gives it a stronger oat flavor.

Now that I think about it, this recipe would be great for making do-si-dos!