I’ve made these before, but this time I added a twist.
I made them at Christmas, and instead of using regular chocolate chips I used Christmas-colored red & green chips, but this time I really took these to another level flavor-wise by substituting half of the chocolate chips for cappuccino chips, freshly arrived from the King Arthur Flour company.
These are fun because they appeal to the little kid taste buds with the oatmeal and the chocolate, and the big kid taste buds with that pinch of sea salt on the top and the bite of the espresso powder in the batter.
They started, simply enough, with dry ingredients. Whole wheat white flour, espresso powder (also freshly arrived from the King Arthur Flour company), baking powder, and salt. (That’s regular salt. You’ll have to wait a little for the fleur de sel.)
Then I turned my attention to the stand mixer, where I beat up some butter until it was bruised and battered. What? No, I beat the butter until smoothish and creamy. Then I added a ridiculous amount of sugar. A cup of brown and a cup of cane sugar, although I confess I skimped on both. It was still more than 3/4 of a cup, but definitely not a full cup. I just couldn’t do it having already made the most decadent delicious cake of all time a few hours earlier.
Trust me, this still looked pretty decadent.
Once that was all mixed together, I added the eggs, one at a time, beating after each one.
The stand mixer’s work was done. I removed the bowl to do the rest by hand, first adding in the flour mixture.
And then I dumped in an almost overwhelming three cups of rolled oats. I really didn’t see how these were all going to get properly incorporated.
And once that arduous mixing task was completed, the chips came along. The recipe called for 1 1/2 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips. I did just over a cup of chips, maybe a cup and a quarter, and split them between semi-sweet chocolate and cappuccino.
Once mixed, I got out my baking sheets, lined with parchment paper — are you ready — freshly arrived from the King Arthur Flour company. (These are SO much better than the ones I got from Amazon. They’re pre-cut like the others, but these can be used again & again, instead of greasing up too much to be used after one go.)
I rolled the dough into balls, flattened them slightly, and sprinkled a bit of fleur de sel (sea salt) onto each one.
I made larger cookies than I usually do, but they were clearly nowhere near the size I was supposed to use, since the recipe yielded double what was predicted. Mine took about 17 minutes to bake, more or less.
I actually experimented with the baking time a little, so some ended up crispy and snappy, while others were softer and chewier. All were delicious.
I love these cookies. And so did everybody else. The espresso powder deepens the flavor, the salt adds bite, the oats give texture, the chips bring in pops of flavor, there so much going on in one little cookie but it all comes together in perfect but exciting harmony. (I know it’s just a cookie, but it’s a really great cookie.)
These are very easy to make, and will make you appear all sophistimicated when you serve them. Unless you use a robot plate.
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