Parks’ handful of oatmeal gives her recipe a satisfyingly nubbly, chewy texture that makes it clear who the headline star is in these cookies. Old-fashioned porridge oats are best, says Cooks Illustrated. (Note: this is not to disparage her biscuits, reverse engineered from Cape Cod’s cult Kayak Cookies’ salty oat version, which are refreshingly light in both texture and sugar content in comparison with the seven other recipes I try for this piece.) Weller’s are certainly the most satisfying texturally, dense in a wholesome kind of a way, and less crumbly and scone-like than the similarly plump versions from Elif Yamangil of the Plenty Sweet blog, who says that, while you can chill the dough for an hour, she bakes it immediately. Melissa Weller’s recipe, from her book A Good Bake, recommends leaving it for four days before baking to achieve “the perfect texture, slightly crispy around the edges with a chewy centre”. Conversely, doughs using rolled oats, which are chunkier and only partially cooked, will benefit from being allowed to sit for a while, so they can absorb the moisture in the butter and eggs. The main difference as far as cookies are concerned is the oats’ willingness to soak up moisture: the precooked instant oats soften immediately, which means that, as Sam cautions her readers, any dough involving them should be baked immediately, before it dries out. Avoid steel-cut oats of any type” – and another, from pastry chef Stella Parks’ book BraveTart, that uses steel-cut oats as well as the rolled variety. Hoping to put this to the test, I find one highly-rated recipe using instant oats on the Buttermilk by Sam baking blog – indeed, she cautions readers that “it’s important to use the right type of oats for these … if you use old-fashioned rolled oats, the cookies will spread. Most of the recipes I try agree with the folks at Cook’s Illustrated magazine, however, that “old-fashioned rolled oats” (that is, porridge oats) have the best “texture and flavour”. Let cookies cool completely before handling.Melissa Weller’s soaks her oats for four days.Place spoon-full-sized balls 2-inches apart on a baking sheet and place in oven for 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees.It’ll be a little dryer than regular cookie dough, but you can eat it without being squicked-out by the eggs…because there aren’t any! Keep going until the whole mixture is as mixed as it can get.This may take quite a bit of time as you mush it all together….just think of it like a mini-manicure of butter/oatmeal for your hands…and get in there good because it takes a lot of aggression to mix this dough up! With your hands (haha! Here’s where the aggression comes in!), mix all your butter in with your dry ingredients.With a spoon, mix all your dry ingredients together in a gigantic bowl (the largest one you have might not be big enough).6 cups Oatmeal (yeah, you read that right). ![]()
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