TBB - Luxury Oatmeal Cookies
Welcome to week 17 of the Alpha Bakers bake-a-long, an online project where a group of food bloggers bake our way through The Baking Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. Most of the recipes made during this project will not be shared, but I will post my commentary followed by a full photo tutorial.
This week's selection - Luxury Oatmeal Cookies. They're not quite what you think of when you think about oatmeal cookies as they include homemade granola, chopped nuts, and chocolate chips.
Special ingredients and/or equipment needed - half sheet pans, homemade granola (recipe in book).
Optional ingredients and/or equipment suggested - silpat silicone liner, digital scale, #30 portion scoop (2 tablespoons).
How do they taste - They're okay, but not my favorite. They're not quite an oatmeal cookie and not quite a chocolate chip cookie. Hard to explain. They're huge too. I think they are good served as a breakfast cookie rather than a sweet snack. Also, we liked them better a day or two after they were baked.
How do they look - Like big oatmeal cookies with lots of stuff in them. I should mention these cookies over bake quickly so be sure to bake the dough when it's well chilled and I suggest baking just a couple to begin with to test the baking time.
Level of difficulty - Fairly easy.
Were the directions clear - For the most part.
What would I do differently next time - Add more vanilla extract, maybe double. I'd also omit the nuts and make the cookies about half the size.
Next up - Pita Pizzas.
Okay, here's my photo tutorial.
To begin with, we have to make the granola that goes into these cookies. Chopped nuts, rolled oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt.
Toss them all together in a large bowl. If there are lumps of brown sugar, break them up with your fingers.
Next we're going to add the liquid ingredients - canola oil, pure maple syrup, and really good vanilla extract.
Just like oil and water don't mix, neither do canola oil, vanilla, and maple syrup. The recipe doesn't specifically say you should whisk them together, but I thought it was a good idea.
A tiny whisk makes quick work of mixing them together.
Pour the liquid concoction over the oat mixture.
Stir very well until all the oats are coated.
Pour the mixture onto a baking sheet and pop it in the oven to bake.
Just 20 minutes later, you'll have granola. Let the granola cool completely. You'll end up with 5 cups, but you'll only need 4 cups for these cookies. Use right away or store in an airtight container to use later.
To make the cookie dough, you'll need 4 cups of the granola, raisins, flour, butter, brown sugar, eggs, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and chocolate chips.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a flat beater, combine the sugars.
Love.
Add the butter.
Cream, cream.
Add the eggs and mix, mix.
In goes the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix some more.
Almost done.
Add the vanilla - be sure to use the good stuff!
Now add the chunky stuff - raisins, granola, and chocolate chips.
Put the cookie mixture in a gallon size zip-top bag and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes so the granola can soften a bit.
To bake, weigh out 42g of dough for each cookie. If you don't have a scale, you can measure 2 tablespoons of dough.
Roll the dough into balls. The dough is sticky so I wet my hands with a little water to make rolling easier.
Flatten the dough balls a bit. You can use the bottom of a cup dipped in flour, but when I did that, it left a lot of flour on the cookies, and that didn't look very nice after the cookies were baked. So I ended up flattening the dough with the palm of my hand dipped in a little water. I also topped each cookie with one chocolate chip.
These cookies over bake very easily so I suggest baking one or two cookies initially to test the baking time and temperature. They're done before the edges turn brown. Be sure to bake well chilled dough on cool sheet pans to prevent excess spreading.
These cookies are pretty big - 3 inches in diameter.
And that's how the cookie crumbles. Until next time - Enjoy!