Loaded Oatmeal Cookies Recipe

Soft-baked, ultra chewy, and simple oatmeal cookie recipe. Only 30 minutes to chill, you’ll have oatmeal cookies in no time. Load them with your favorites! 

My oatmeal cookie dough starts with creamed butter, brown sugar, and granulated (white) sugar. It’s important to know that sugar is used to not only sweeten the cookies, but to give them structure, texture, tenderness, and volume. In most of my cookie recipes, I prefer to use more brown sugar than white sugar. This is because brown sugar holds more moisture than white sugar and thus will produce a softer, moister final baked good. I like to use dark brown sugar since it has a slightly higher amount of molasses. However, if you’re in a pinch and only have light brown sugar – that’s ok!

I recently began adding a Tablespoon of dark molasses into my oatmeal cookie dough. It’s a little something I picked up from one of my cookbook cookie recipes (recipe on page 109!). 1 Tablespoon doesn’t sound like much. And you’re right! It’s not that much. But it’s just enough to give a subtle amount of extra molasses flavor. However, don’t go buy a bottle just for this recipe. They’re fine without it.

I played around with the oats to flour ratio a lot when I first published this oatmeal cookie recipe. I’ve found that more oats to flour is what I like best. I want my oatmeal cookies to taste, for lack of better words, oat-y! Oats provide a fabulously chewy texture and soak up moisture from the cookie dough and hold onto it while the cookies bake in the oven. Similar to how oats soak up all the moisture when you are making oatmeal for breakfast. This is a good thing!

There is always the question of which type of oats to use in recipes. For these? I use old-fashioned whole oats in this recipe, as opposed to quick oats. Quick oats, which are more powdery than whole oats, may dry out your cookies. You could certainly try using them, but I prefer whole oats. They give more texture: hearty, chewy, thick.

I’ve learned over the past year how important it is to use room temperature eggs when using room temperature or melted butter in cookie recipes. Room temperature eggs incorporate evenly into your cookie dough – guaranteeing a uniform structure among every cookie in your batch. That’s why you use eggs in cookies – for structure.

Tip: When I need room temperature butter for creaming, I set out the egg(s) with the butter about 1 hour before beginning. If you forget to set out your egg, no worries. Place it into a bowl of warm water for 5 minutes, then use.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (115g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
• 3/4 cup (150g) packed light or dark brown sugar
• 1/4 cup  (50g) granulated sugar
• 1 large egg, at room temperature
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 Tablespoon (20g) dark molasses
• 1 and 2/3 cups (140g) old-fashioned whole rolled oats
• 1 cup (125g) all-purpose flour (spoon & leveled)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 and 1/2 cups add-ins (I used butterscotch morsels, chopped peanut butter M&Ms, and chocolate chunks)

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