Thick & Chewy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Its been tough getting in time to bake but the past Tuesday was my boyfriend’s birthday, so the least I could do was bake him some goodies. His favorite is Chocolate Chip Oatmeal cookies.  All my cookbooks are at my new place so I dug around in my Pinterest and remembered that I had pinned this recipe from a blog that I’ve followed for quite some time called Chew Out Loud.  I still have a ton of recipes to try from this blog but these looked like quite the winner.  As usual, I made a few changes to it but this one is not gluten-free as my boyfriend isn’t so I don’t make him eat GF flour unless necessary 😉

Thick & Chewy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

The recipe I used was this one: http://www.chewoutloud.com/2014/12/21/thick-n-chewy-oatmeal-dark-chocolate-cookies/

Makes 24 cookies

Suffice to say these aren’t quite Thick & Chewy and I only managed to get half the batter used.  My mom ended up transforming the second half the next day into muffins after adding in some cashew milk or something.  The cookies were quite good. My boyfriend seemed to enjoy it. Still, my issue was also that I forgot to flatten it and just kept it in a rolled up batter. Rushing to baking when I don’t do it frequent enough is hurting my little skills that I have.

Lets start with the changes:

• Omit cinnamon: ran out
• Unsalted butter instead of salted and less than required: I used the only bit left, maybe 14 tbsp, I just estimated.
• Semi-sweet chocolate chips instead of chopped semi-sweet chocolate

The cookies was pretty easy to make.  Cookies usually are and that’s why I love making them.  Plus, the oven time is usually around 15 minutes so its quick as well.  Efficiency is definitely a plus for this recipe. I felt like there was a lot of sugar for this one but my boyfriend felt it was good. I can’t eat chocolate so I didn’t get a taste.  The looks are really good as well.  I could’ve waited for it to cool a little more because it would have settled a little more (as the recipe suggests).

This is definitely an easy and efficient recipe to try.  My boyfriend liked it quite a bit.  I absolutely love the smell of chocolate swirl around the air as it bakes.

Do you like chocolate chip and/or oatmeal cookies? 

Baking: Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies (with Chocolate Chips)

I’m starting to have gotten all those fresh cranberries.  I’m at the last stretch to try and finish it before it gets too ripe to make anything.  In heart of making cranberry scones, somehow I changed my plan as I was flipping through recipes and decides to make oatmeal cookies instead.

I adapted this recipe from Butter’s Baked Goods  by Rosie Daykins.  This originally was with pecans and white chocolate chips.  I removed the pecans from the recipe below but if you ever want to use it, just ask and I’ll send you the full recipe 🙂

Note that I made two different ones.  In the first dozen, I made it with just cranberries and in the second one, for my boyfriend, I added in chocolate chips.

Just Cranberries

Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies

Ingredients

Makes 24 cookies

*2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
*1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup butter, room temperature
1 1/4 cups dark brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
*1 tsp pure vanilla
1 1/2 cups large-flake rolled oats
*2/3 cup white chocolate chips
*2/3 cup dried cranberries

With Chocolate Chips

1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2. Onto a large piece of parchment paper, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt  Set aside.

3. In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and both sugars on medium to high speed until light and fluffy.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

4. Add the eggs one at a time and beat briefly after each addition.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the vanilla and beat again to combine.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

5. Turn the mixer to low and add the dry ingredients and the oats and mix until combined.  Add the white chocolate chips and cranberries and mix again to fully distribute.

6 Use the ice cream scoop to drop 24 equally sized portions of dough onto the prepared cookie sheets, about 1 1/2 inches apart.  Use the palm of your hand to press down lightly on the top of each cookie to flatten slightly.

7. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 to 17 minutes or until lightly golden around the edges and slightly soft in the center.

8. Remove from the oven and transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

Lets start with modifications, as usual:

• Omit baking powder and vanilla.  I really should remember to buy them when I do groceries…
• Gluten-free flour instead of regular all-purpose flour
• Semi-sweet Chocolate Chips instead of white chocolate chips
• Fresh cranberries instead of dried cranberries (I added about 1 cup instead of the 2/3 cup)

I haven’t made oatmeal cookies in so long that I forgot how delicious they were.  Plus, it is one of the simplest things to make.  These were perfect.  Plus, the whole fresh cranberries adds this tart taste to it which balances out the flavors a little.  My boyfriend isn’t a cranberry fan but the chocolate chips were great.  Next modification will be making a batch with just chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.

The only change I would make is to add some nuts in.  I’m sure it would add an even better texture to it 🙂

Any oatmeal cookie fans? Any suggestions for what to make with fresh cranberries? 

Banana Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Bananas! I looked around a few days ago and realized that we had A LOT of very riped bananas.  I mean, to the point that no one would actually want to eat them just like that.  It was a coincidence that I had planned to make a batch of Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookies with a switched up (unhealthier) version of my Healthy Oatmeal Cookies! My friend from NYC had come to visit me a few weeks ago and had brought me some Baker’s Chocolate Chunks and I was ever so excited to get cracking on using them.

Instead, I went on Martha Stewart‘s site and searched up some new recipes and found this one to incorporate the abundant ripe bananas to my original plan.  This was the end result:

http://www.marthastewart.com/338169/banana-walnut-chocolate-chunk-cookies?center=276955&gallery=274361&slide=284283

It was for a Banana-Walnut Chocolate Chunk Cookies but all I needed to do was not put walnuts and I’d be right on.

 

 

Just to set things straight, I DID NOT end up with 3 dozen.  I made crazy huge cookies so I got about 12 cookies and I had around 4 miniature ones since I was lazy to start another batch on another baking sheet.  I also had to make a few modifications.  For one, my flour supply is at all-purpose flour.  Thats all I own so I just replaced whole wheat flour with all-purpose.  Also, I ran out of butter, I realized I had maybe an ounce of butter max.  So I had to use margarine instead.

These cookies looked good (and huge), tasted amazing and smelled like heaven.  You know its one of the few recipes that the description actually matches the actual outcome.  The smell of bananas as an ingredient and chocolate has always been great because it just fills the kitchen with the best aromas ever in the process that its just only baking in the oven.  So this was fantastic! It said that its a mix of banana bread and chocolate chunk cookies and I think its right on at least! The cookie had the texture of banana bread for the most part and smelled like it too.  The chocolate chunks and the oatmeal gave it that extra boost to the next level of being a cookie.

If you have time and love chocolate and bananas, you HAVE TO give this a shot!  You won’t be disappointed.