A Load-a Oats: Cookie Recipes!

(Hooray, I recovered the post!  Today’s Tidbit #Two: Sometimes Perseverance Pays Off)

It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for*… Here’s the missing cookie recipe from the last post.  Or, I guess, recipes, since I made the one recipe into two different cookies.

*I fully recognizes that none of you may have been waiting for this moment at all… but I hope you’re glad it’s here anyway : )

Like I said before, I started with a recipe from Oh She Glows (which was already a combination of two different recipes), and then did some experimental modification to create two different types of cookie with one dough base.

I’ll give you the base, and then the mix-ins for the two variations.  Or feel free the variate to your taste. They will satisfy any oaty and/or nutty need that resides within your being.  Plus most of the mixing takes place in a food processor, which minimizes the need for both extra hours in the day and high endurance arm strength.

Nuts and Oats Cookie Base

Ingredients:

1 cup toasted almonds*

3/4 cup oats, ground in a food processor until flour-like

1 cup old fashioned oats, not ground

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon

3/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup pure maple syrup

2 tsp any type of milk (cow’s, soy, almond, etc)

1/4 cup (4 tbsp) unsalted butter

2 tsp vanilla extract

(*If your almonds aren’t already toasted, toast for 10-12 minutes in a 350 F oven until they smell lovely.)

Directions:

1- Preheat oven to 350 F and grease a baking sheet.

2- Put the almonds in a food processor and process until finely ground (before it starts to exude oils and turn to almond butter)

3- Add oat “flour”, all purpose flour, old fashioned oats, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, and brown sugar and process for about 30 seconds until all mixed up (it may seem redundant to have the floury oats and the old fashioned, but the floury ones help hold the cookies together, and the unground oats add some oat nub textures).

3- Melt the butter in a mixing bowl (or melt the butter on the stove top and then put it in the mixing bowl).  Stir in the maple syrup, milk of choice, and vanilla.  Pour these wet ingredients into the food processor and process until thoroughly combined.

4- At this point, if you are making a chocolate version of these cookies, you also need to process the cocoa powder and extra 2 tbsp milk (see below for specifications).  If you do this, expect this:

Transformation!

5- Remove dough to the mixing bowl and stir in your mix-ins.

6- Remove about 2 tbsp of dough, roll into a ball, and then flatten into a cookie shape.  Place on cookie sheet and repeat, spacing cookies about an inch apart.

7- Bake for 10 minutes, no longer!

8- Remove from oven and let sit on sheet for 2 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack until cool.

Possible Mix-In Ingredients:

for Double Dark Chocolate Oat Cookies..

2/3 cup cocoa powder

2 tbsp milk of choice

1/2 cup chocolate chips

(the cocoa powder and milk are processed in with the dough in the food processor and the chocolate chips are stirred in after)

for Extra Oaty Cherry Walnut…

1/2 cup dried cherries

1 cup old fashioned oats

1/4 cup walnut pieces

(stir all of these ingredients into the dough after removing from the food processor)

That was probably the last thing I baked just for fun… over a month ago!

School is always a difficult balance for me because if I decide to try and “relax” I often end up preoccupied about the work I should be doing.  But if I let my need to work take over, I seldom do certain things I enjoy, such as baking.  I am not as extreme as some — I always make time for running, eating, and sleeping — but there are many things in life I find pleasing and I do not want to exclude all of those things from my life.

Friday I stayed in College Park to do some grading in the hopes that Sunday could be a little more relaxing, but today is Sunday and I still feel the weight of the Things To Do that lie ahead… However, I did make a conscious decision to bake this cake, since it was something my mother expressed interest in and I am currently obsessed with fresh figs.

Figs, resting in a bed of butter and brown sugar, scattered over with rosemary, waiting to become a lemony Fresh Fig, Walnut,  and Rosemary Upside Down Cake.  I can’t vouch for the taste yet, but the smell is definitely tantalizing.  According to Food Blogga, who posted the original, it’s a cake of balance and contrast, which are the qualities that make desserts like these interesting.  I was convinced, and maybe you will be too : )