A new cookie has taken the lead as my favorite cookie – oatmeal chocolate chip. The old favorite was chocolate chip. I know, it’s not much of a difference. And yet, that simple addition of oats gives the texture and flavor something special that I just love.
Of course, this meant I needed to come up with a recipe so I could make the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies just the way I like – a little chewy. I started with this recipe for butterscotch oatmeal cookies that I made a couple years ago with good success, but I made a couple changes, also looking at my dough ball recipe for some ideas. I liked the flavor and chewiness of those butterscotch cookies, but I wanted to reduce the sugar and make them less flat, plus I wanted to make far fewer cookies. I played with the recipe over several batches, about 8 or 9 over the last couple years. I started by halving the butterscotch cookie recipe, adding flour, and reducing the sugar amounts. The first couple tries were decent but not great. I thought simply adding flour would make the cookies less flat, but it didn’t work as I expected. I tried some batches with far less sugar, far less flour, different amounts of butter, using baking powder instead of baking soda, and many other variations. Each try was just okay but not just right. I tracked my adjustments and made notes along the way. Most recently, I tried doing some google research.
I did some online searching for how to make cookies chewy, and it turns out sugar is one thing that that helps make them chewy (so much for reducing it lol). Apparently using melted butter and baking soda instead of baking powder helps, too. So, I tried a couple more times, tweaking things all along the way. The final result is what I’d consider a “just right” oatmeal chocolate chip cookie – a little chewy, a little soft, and a little crispy all in one delicious package.
Just Right Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
The ingredients are simple and the results are delicious. They whip up pretty quickly, too! I started with this cookie recipe and experimented, analyzed, and re-experimented, and re-analyzed over several batches until I was happy with the results. According to some google research, melted butter, sugar, and baking soda help give the cookie a chewy texture, so keep that in mind if you modify the recipe at home, especially if you like chewy cookies, too. Be sure you use kosher salt or reduce the amount if you use table salt instead. And mini chocolate chips distribute better than large ones, so I was able to reduce that amount versus the 3/4 cup of the regular size chocolate chips I’d recommend. Hope you like these cookies as much as I do!
*Vegetarian, vegan options listed below*
Prep time: 10 minutes
Bake time: 10-12 minutes
Total time: 20-22 minutes, plus cooling time
Ingredients:
- 1 1/4 cup quick-cooking oats (old-fashioned would probably work just fine, too)
- 3/4 cup flour
- 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt (reduce amount if you use table salt, maybe 1/4 – 1/2 depending on how you like your cookie flavor)
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted and cooled slightly (vegan – sub Earth Balance or similar product)
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 egg (vegan – sub a flaxseed egg)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips (or use 3/4 cup regular sized chocolate chips)
Directions:
- Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare three baking sheets with parchment paper. Note: I could bake all the cookies in one batch with 2 shelves and 3 baking sheets.
- In a large bowl, add oats, flour, salt, and baking soda. Whisk to evenly combine.
- In a medium bowl mix butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar. Make sure butter mixture isn’t too hot so it doesn’t cook the egg when add it, and add the egg and vanilla. Whisk to evenly combine.
- Pour wet mixture into dry mixture and gently mix with a large spatula. Fold in chocolate chips.
- Using a medium sized sorbet scoop (2 tablespoon), scoop dough and evenly distribute on baking sheets, leaving about 3 inches of space in between each ball of dough.
- Bake 10-12 minutes, until edges are slightly brown. Remove from oven and let cool on baking sheets to room temperature. Enjoy!
Happy baking! Thanks for reading!
Which do you prefer: regular chocolate chip or oatmeal chocolate chip?
The weekend seemed to go by too quickly. I wished I’d had a whole week to spend there like we did last time.
Nevertheless, Sunday night was for revisiting some faves from our last trip – French Broad Chocolate Lounge and Homegrown.
But first, I enjoyed a massage at Spa Theology – a recommendation from our B&B. I first checked into the Grove Park Inn, but it was over $200 for an 80 minute massage, and they didn’t have anything shorter. The price just seemed so high. Has anyone been? Is it worth it? I was really intimidated by most of the prices at the Grove Park Inn. $90 for a non-resort guest to visit the spa area pools? Maybe it’s worth it, and I just don’t know since I haven’t been.
Either way, I had a great massage at Spa Theology. Their setup is really nice (and really close to French Broad Chocolates). I felt really comfortable and relaxed at their facility. I liked how they offered massage upgrades (scalp treatment, foot scrub, hot stones). I opted for the foot scrub, though I’m not sure that particular one was worth it. It didn’t add any additional time to the massage, just the treatment. Anywho, the lounge area was small but cozy. Oh, and did you see the photo above? A post-massage chocolate waited for me in my locker. Pretty sweet, right? I also really liked the goodies for sale in the shop area of Spa Theology. I took home a candle and linen spray to enjoy later.
Since it was nearby, I walked on over to French Broad after my massage. Last time we were here, we waited in a line out the door. This time, there was almost no line. Score!
I had a tough choice selecting from all the delicious options, though they were narrowed down since I was getting everything to go. I got a couple things for dinner and then a brownie and pecan tart to take home the next day.
Hubby picked me up from downtown, and we headed to Homegrown for dinner.
We started with pimento cheese with pita wedges and fresh veggies.
Hubby had some tomato soup as a starter.
For my entrée, I had the fried chicken I loved so much last time with mushroom gravy. I got the sesame kale and mashed potatoes for my side. It was comfort food goodness. I still can’t believe you can get such good food for such a low price!
In case you didn’t see my last post on Homegrown, the decorations are sparse, but what they lack there they make up with delicious food and amazing prices. I wouldn’t go here for a romantic dinner, but I definitely recommend stopping by some time if you’re ever in Asheville.
We headed back to the B&B to enjoy our French Broad take-out with a glass of vino (picked up from the local Green Life/Whole Foods)
We had super tasty macaron…
…and a slice of the quintessential chocolate cake. Yum! Both were just as delicious as I expected them to be based on our last trip. I almost got the olive oil chocolate cake this time, but I guess I’ll have to safe that for trying next time!
Thanks for reading!
Merry Christmas from my parents’ house!
Bailey’s been getting plenty of attention from my family, which he loves.
My mom and sister decided to whip up a huge, Filipino feast for our Christmas Eve dinner this year.
Mom made a dish she said we haven’t had in almost twenty years – morcon. Morcon is a dish made with flank steak that is rolled up with ham, kielbasa, hard-boiled eggs, and olives and then cooked in a tomato-based sauce. It sounds and looks kind of weird, but it tastes great!
Here’s the spread.
And here’s the finished morcon. We’re definitely not waiting another twenty years to make this one again. It was a winner.
Sis is a dim sum fan, too, and she made a Filipino-Chinese fusion with steamed buns filled with pork adobo.
These were so good that I had two more for an after-dinner snack! (dinner was really early)
Lumpia is always welcome at a Filipino feast.
They made this version with chicken and a wide mixture of vegetables, including cabbage, carrots, and zucchini. Yum!
Here’s my plate – don’t forget about the pancit.
{chowing down}
Flan – a dessert we often had at holiday meals growing up. We haven’t had this one in awhile, either.
{my piece – I’d forgotten how good this was}
Everything on the table was a winner tonight. I can’t imagine a better Christmas Eve dinner for our family.
After eats, we moved on to open some presents for our guests – hubby and Matt.
Bailey helped open presents.
And after some gift-opening fun, mom, Sis, and I got started on a new food project – suman. We’ve never made suman before. Well, mom said she used to make it growing up. Suman is a Filipino dessert made with sweet rice, coconut milk, and salt.
It was quite the process, but we did it. We ended up with twenty finished suman.
The finished suman is then topped with sugar or served with sugar on the side. This stuff is good, and it really takes on the flavor from the bamboo leaf it’s cooked in, but I still prefer my Sweet Rice (the one made with brown sugar). Either way, it was a fun project to do with my family.
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I’m seriously geeking out on my Christmas vacation. I majored in Computer Science in college, but I’ve never really worked as a developer. But, I’ve been feeling the itch to code lately, so I’m trying to teach myself Python. I’d also like to take a look at some HTML5 tutorials since I’m only self-taught on HTML from several years ago. Who knows? I’m having fun, so I guess it’s all good. What have you been up to?
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Reader question: If you celebrated, what did you eat for Christmas Eve dinner? Do you have any traditional Christmas Eve eats?
New Holiday Cookie Recipe
Here’s another idea for a great cookie to make this holiday season – melt-in-your-mouth Cinnamon Maple Peanut Butter Cookies.
When I saw some organic peanut butter on sale for $1.99 a jar, I knew I had to get some. Specifically, I had to purchase some so I could experiment with a recipe I’ve always wanted to play with – the classic peanut butter cookie. In researching the recipe, I discovered there are two main types of peanut butter cookie – with and without flour. While the idea of a flourless peanut butter cookie sounded interesting, I decided to work up a batch that had flour. But, I wanted to change it up a bit. I used maple syrup for the sweetener and added a touch of cinnamon.
The maple syrup gave these cookies a really interesting and smooth texture. In fact, I first thought these cookies would be a fail. I noticed when I was rolling the dough balls in a bowl of cinnamon sugar that the dough was wetter than I thought it would be. It wasn’t difficult to work with, just not as firm as I expected. And the baked up cookie crumbled a little easier than I would have liked. The worst part – I’d made an experiment recipe to take to a pot luck hot dog party with some of my friends. Oh no…would they hate them?
I went ahead and brought the cookies to my friend’s house and hoped for the best. I didn’t ask any of them what they thought of the cookie because I felt like that would fishing for compliments and they’d say they were good even if they thought they were terrible. Still, several of my friends told me the cookies were really good. I didn’t believe them. Surely, they were being polite. Then, one of them told me how much she liked the flavor twist. She wasn’t sure what it was but when I confirmed it was maple syrup and cinnamon, she got really excited and said she loved maple syrup. Things were looking promising. But, I was still unconvinced that the cookies were worthy of being shared here on the blog.
It wasn’t until we were headed back to the kitchen to get our tupperware to take home that I believed this recipe could go up here on The Chic Life. As we entered the kitchen, there was a man standing there I’d never seen before, and he was gobbling up the cookies and saying they were delicious and that it was like they “melted in your mouth.” Yesssssss! For a stranger to say he liked the cookies without knowing I made them, that had to mean they were good. I told him we brought them and offered for him to take some before we left. He quickly grabbed another two. I offered more to my friends who had hosted they party, and they took some more, too. And with that, it was decided – I would share the recipe with you guys!
Oh, and that whole crumbly-texture thing…definitely more of a melt-in-your-mouth quality. That’s what I’m going with, at least.
Cinnamon Maple Peanut Butter Cookies
I switched up the flavors of the class peanut butter cookie by using maple syrup as the sweetener and adding cinnamon for a little extra kick. Rolling the dough balls in a cinnamon sugar mixture helps drive the cinnamon flavor home. The resulting flavor is familiar but new. The texture isn’t chewy, but more of a melt-in-your-mouth bite.
Prep time:
Bake time:
Total time:
*Vegetarian*
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, plus 1/2 teaspoon
- 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter
- 1 cup crunchy peanut butter
- 3/4 cup maple syrup
- 1 egg
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar (preferably raw)
Directions:
- Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Mix sugar and cinnamon together in a small bowl and set aside.
- Whisk dry together
- Mix butter and peanut butter till creamy (I used a handheld mixer). Add maple syrup, egg, and vanilla and mix till just combined.
- Mix wet into dry till just combined (careful to not overmix).
- Use small sorbet scoop (or two spoons) to form small balls (about 1″ in diameter). Dough will be very soft, but gently roll each ball in cinnamon sugar mixture and return to baking sheet. Use a fork to press criss-crosses into the top of each cookie, pressing gently. Cookies should be about 1/4-1/3″ tall/thick.
- Bake 8-12 minutes depending on oven temperature variation (if using 2 racks in oven, rotate baking sheets halfway through baking process) Note: Mine were done at 10 minutes
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More Ideas
Here are more holiday cookie ideas:
And be sure to check out this holiday cookie round up by Snappy Gourmet (click).
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Your Feedback
And I LOVE your comments! Thank you so much for your feedback – whether you stop by here and leave a comment, post on my Facebook wall, tweet me, or email me. I love hearing from you!
Here’s a sweet comment from Facebook about these cookies – Thank you so much, Nicole!:
And here’s a comment on Pinterest about this hot chocolate recipe – Thank you, Sherene!:
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Christmas Vacation
I got some last minute shopping done yesterday morning. I woke up super early to beat the mall traffic and take advantage of the extended hours. The strategy totally worked as the mall was almost empty. Yes! I have all my gifts lined up…now, I just have to wrap all of them. One of these years I’ll get this done earlier.
We’re getting ready to head out to visit my family for Christmas. I have the next week off from work, and I’m SO excited! I’ve been hoarding these days all year, and I’m so ready for a vacation! I’m hoping for a good mix of downtime with our families with some time to get stuff done at our house.
Reader question: Christmas gift shopping – what’s your style – early or late?
Also, what are your plans for the holiday season?
