Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

It has been way too long since I’ve made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. When my friend Susannah announced that she was coming to visit me, I asked her what kind of cookies she’d like to snack on. Oatmeal chocolate chip was her answer, and I couldn’t have been more thrilled.

These cookies have the perfect amount of chewiness in the center, and the edges are lightly crisped. Absolutely divine!

We spent lots of time this week at the museum and the beach. I don’t get to visit the beach as often as I would like, so it’s always a treat when I have an excuse to go. We took lots of photos, and we even photographed these balanced rocks while lying on the ground in true Susannah fashion! Susannah frequently photographs from unique angles, which is part of what makes her work so fascinating. It’s a constant joke that we have, since her bio shows her lying in the middle of the road to get the perfect angle for a photograph.

What a beautiful and peaceful pastime it must be to balance these rocks along the shoreline. This was one of my favorite sights at the beach.

And after a day full of exploring, what better way to wind down than with oatmeal chocolate chip cookies?

This recipe makes 4 dozen cookies. That’s a lot of cookies! I didn’t bake them all (although we might have polished them all off if I had). I froze some of the dough to bake later, or perhaps to eat straight from the freezer. Either way, it’s delicious.

If you like your cookies to spread, use the dough right away. Refrigerating the dough for at least 20 minutes will produce more compact, puffy cookies. Here are the cookies that I baked right away:

The cookies below were baked with dough that had been refrigerated for 20 minutes:

I didn’t notice any difference in taste between the two methods. Both batches of cookies were wonderfully soft in the center! I’ll definitely be making these again very soon.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from The Frog Commissary Cookbook via Bakingsheet
Yield: about 4 dozen cookies

1 cup butter, room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tablespoons soy milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups old-fashioned (rolled) oats
2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

With an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in the soy milk and vanilla extract.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Stir the flour mixture into the wet ingredients by hand, or with the mixer on low speed. Add the oats and chocolate chips, stirring by hand.

If you’d like smaller, puffier cookies, refrigerate the dough for at least 20 minutes before baking. Form the dough into 1 inch balls, and place them on the cookie sheet 1 1/2 inches apart.

Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the edges start to brown. Cool the cookies on the baking sheet, placed on a cooling rack, for 5 minutes. Remove the cookies from the baking sheet and continue to cool them directly on the rack.