Looking through the recipes, this one intrigued me, I’ve made regular oatmeal cookies plenty of times, but this one was a bit different. So I jumped in.
Sadly there is no similar recipe I could find on allrecipes.com. This one seems to be unique. I will update if I find one.
When I picked this recipe, I knew that it would require refrigeration which was fine, but the real surprise was in how the cookies came together.
Radically different from previous cookie recipes, this recipe started by putting all the dry ingredients into a bowl and mixing them together. Next step was to put in some butter and shortening into the bowl and cutting it into the dry mixture until it’s crumbly. Basically this recipe was starting like a pie crust!
But cutting in the butter and shortening was a real trial. The shortening was soft because it was off the shelf, and the oats interfered with my pastry blender so I had to resort to using 2 knives like my mom used to do for making pie crusts. It was slow, tedious business.
As an aside, I always use old-fashioned oats when I make baked goods with oatmeal. Recipes always call for quick cooking oats, but I feel like the old-fashioned ones have more “umph”. I like them better.
I had cut in the butter and shortening as much as I was going to, which probably wasn’t as much as it should have been, but I wanted to move on.
Next step was like pie crust yet again. Just 2 tablespoons of cold water with a teaspoon of vanilla added was to be drizzled over the dry mixture with the butter and shortening cut in and tossed enough to coat. Neat!
Now the instructions said to form the mixture into a 2” diameter cylinder, so I dumped the bowl out onto some plastic wrap and started pulling it together. It was hard to imagine this stuff holding together for cookies! But I managed to create my cylinder and put it in the refrigerator over night.
The next day it was very solid and ready to cut. Now the instructions said to slice thinly the italics right there in the book. What the heck does that mean? I could only imagine it meant around ⅛ of an inch, but who knows? So I started by cutting the cylinder in half long ways so I had a nice flat edge to start with and then tried to slice off a cookie.
Well it wasn’t holding together at all at ⅛ of an inch, so I went up to ¼ of an inch and that seemed to work for the most part. Sometimes they were still trying to fall apart, but I’d mush the sliced cookie back together and get it over to the cookie sheet.
It was still difficult to imagine how these cookies were going to turn out. With no eggs to hold them together I was curious how they’d bake up and come off the sheet.
These went into a slightly cooler oven at 350 and I timed 10 minutes for the 8-10 minutes recommended time. It wasn’t enough when I touched them they were completely soft. I had to let them go a minute or two longer or they wouldn’t hold together on the spatula.
With that adjustment I proceeded to make the rest, it was troublesome slicing the cookies, but kind of neat too.
Once one had cooled, I tried it and I found it to be very tasty. Almost a little butterscotchy in flavor with a really nice chewy texture. I brought these in to work and they were very popular, definitely one to try again!
Lessons Learned:
Have the shortening you’re going to use in the refrigerator or freezer so it’s firm to start with. It was too soft for cutting in off the shelf.
Try cutting in with all the dry ingredients except the oats, then add the oats. Cutting in the butter with the oats there was clunky. I could not use my pastry blender effectively.
Try using quick cooking oats one time. The old-fashioned oats may be too heavy for cutting these cookies thinly enough.
At ¼ inch slices they needed to cook longer than 10 minutes to be able to hold together. See if more thoroughly cut in butter/shortening and/or use of quick cooking oats allows thinner slicing and shorter cooking time.
Sadly there is no similar recipe I could find on allrecipes.com. This one seems to be unique. I will update if I find one.
When I picked this recipe, I knew that it would require refrigeration which was fine, but the real surprise was in how the cookies came together.
Radically different from previous cookie recipes, this recipe started by putting all the dry ingredients into a bowl and mixing them together. Next step was to put in some butter and shortening into the bowl and cutting it into the dry mixture until it’s crumbly. Basically this recipe was starting like a pie crust!
But cutting in the butter and shortening was a real trial. The shortening was soft because it was off the shelf, and the oats interfered with my pastry blender so I had to resort to using 2 knives like my mom used to do for making pie crusts. It was slow, tedious business.
As an aside, I always use old-fashioned oats when I make baked goods with oatmeal. Recipes always call for quick cooking oats, but I feel like the old-fashioned ones have more “umph”. I like them better.
I had cut in the butter and shortening as much as I was going to, which probably wasn’t as much as it should have been, but I wanted to move on.
Next step was like pie crust yet again. Just 2 tablespoons of cold water with a teaspoon of vanilla added was to be drizzled over the dry mixture with the butter and shortening cut in and tossed enough to coat. Neat!
Now the instructions said to form the mixture into a 2” diameter cylinder, so I dumped the bowl out onto some plastic wrap and started pulling it together. It was hard to imagine this stuff holding together for cookies! But I managed to create my cylinder and put it in the refrigerator over night.
The next day it was very solid and ready to cut. Now the instructions said to slice thinly the italics right there in the book. What the heck does that mean? I could only imagine it meant around ⅛ of an inch, but who knows? So I started by cutting the cylinder in half long ways so I had a nice flat edge to start with and then tried to slice off a cookie.
Well it wasn’t holding together at all at ⅛ of an inch, so I went up to ¼ of an inch and that seemed to work for the most part. Sometimes they were still trying to fall apart, but I’d mush the sliced cookie back together and get it over to the cookie sheet.
It was still difficult to imagine how these cookies were going to turn out. With no eggs to hold them together I was curious how they’d bake up and come off the sheet.
These went into a slightly cooler oven at 350 and I timed 10 minutes for the 8-10 minutes recommended time. It wasn’t enough when I touched them they were completely soft. I had to let them go a minute or two longer or they wouldn’t hold together on the spatula.
 |
| Oatmeal Rounds cooling on the rack |
With that adjustment I proceeded to make the rest, it was troublesome slicing the cookies, but kind of neat too.
Once one had cooled, I tried it and I found it to be very tasty. Almost a little butterscotchy in flavor with a really nice chewy texture. I brought these in to work and they were very popular, definitely one to try again!
 |
| Ready to serve! |
Have the shortening you’re going to use in the refrigerator or freezer so it’s firm to start with. It was too soft for cutting in off the shelf.
Try cutting in with all the dry ingredients except the oats, then add the oats. Cutting in the butter with the oats there was clunky. I could not use my pastry blender effectively.
Try using quick cooking oats one time. The old-fashioned oats may be too heavy for cutting these cookies thinly enough.
At ¼ inch slices they needed to cook longer than 10 minutes to be able to hold together. See if more thoroughly cut in butter/shortening and/or use of quick cooking oats allows thinner slicing and shorter cooking time.
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