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Old Fashioned Oatmeal Cookies:
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs (room temperature)
1/4 cup milk
1 tablespoon vanilla
4 cups rolled oats (the 5-minute kind)
1+1/2 cups cups all-purpose flour
1 cup finely crushed graham crackers (about 15)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
OPTIONS:
7oz marshmallow creme (Fluff) topped with 45-50 Hershey Kisses, unwrapped (S’Mores)
1 to 1+1/2 cup dried cranberries (Craisins)
1 to 1+1/2 cup chocolate chips
1. In a medium bowl whisk the oats, flour, graham crackers, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt together until well combined. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl beat the butter on medium speed for 30 seconds the beat in both sugars, scraping down the side of the bowl.
3. Beat in the eggs, milk and vanilla just until combined.
4. Beat in as much of the flour mixture as you can with the mixer, if it gets too thick for your mixer stir by hand until just combined.
5. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, or roll the dough out into logs in wax paper, and chill at least 1 hour but no longer than 4 hours.
6. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper or lightly grease.
7. Scoop up slightly rounded tablespoonfuls of dough and lightly roll into a ball, or cut up your logs into dough slices. Place each about 2 inches apart on prepared cookie sheets and bake 8 minutes.
8. Remove from oven to cool off on wire racks. Note: If making the S’mores version use the back of a measuring spoon to make a small indent in the center of each cookie before dropping teaspoonfuls (use another spoon to scrape it off the measuring spoon) of marshmallow fluff into each one and then push a kiss down into the center of that.
9. Store in one layer in a tightly covered container up to one week – although truth be told, they’ve never last that long around here.
I make these cookies almost weekly now. I routinely split the dough up into six measured out 10-oz blobs which I then roll into 2″ thick logs in sheets of waxed paper to create small bake batches. I twist the ends of the wax paper like a bon bon candy would be to seal the logs up, and chill them in the fridge for close to 2 hours before baking. Oh, and with my bench scraper (or the blade of my big chef’s knife) I flatten each end of the logs so all of the cookies are even and uniform when I cut them.
The husband loves when I add dried cranberries (Craisins) into these cookies, but I’ve also added other stuff like chocolate chips, nuts, Fluff & Hershey Kisses, etc. Be as creative as you like. There are some suggestions above at the bottom of the recipe listing. You can even wait till after you measure each blob out to add your extra ingredients to make six different cookie logs in one go as long as you’re organized enough to do so.
Conversely, these cookies are delicious enough to stand on their own without any extras added. Just the bare bones cookie dough, all on its own. Try it. You’ll see what I mean.
Normally I split the batch of dough rolls to give three away to my in-laws, and reserve the other three to bake up small batches of a dozen bite size cookies for us to enjoy. I tend to bake one roll every other day to replenish our cookie stash. These cookies hold their soft, chewy texture really well, too. The proof of that is I left one cookie out all night by accident (OOPS) and the next morning it tasted just as fresh as it had the day before we made them.
This dough can also be frozen if you’re planning to use them at Christmas. I would recommend making these no longer than 3 months in advance if you so inclined to have your freezer that stocked up. I find making doughs and baking so many different cookies at Christmas stressful, so I like to start stockpiling around the last week of November and make one new cookie batch to freeze every week as time permits. In the end, all I have to do is cut, bake, cool and decorate as I wrap gifts. Saves me loads of time on doing dishes and fridge space as the doughs require chilling.
And finally, the logs should each yield at least 6 healthy cookies, or if you are modest or want to stretch the dough as far as you can make it go, you can probably make close to 16 thin cookies (but not paper thin — no one likes that!). I approach cutting up the long as I do cutting up sushi rolls. (Cut the log in half; line up those halves side by side and cut in half, and cut outward from there until all log sections are uniformly sliced up.)
Enjoy!
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