Luxury Oatmeal Cookies

Luxury Oatmeal Cookies

I was considering the oatmeal and granola idea with a jaundiced eye, especially when all I could find were steel-ground oats, or minute made ones, and didn't know if instant something would be acceptable. Finally I did find some 'old-fashioned oats' that were 'rolled.' So that was it for that. I am hoping that through this endeavor I can at least learn to like granola. Moreover to just at least tolerate the thought of the oatmeal that was placed before me many a day and met with a scowl from me. They put brown sugar on it  - I doubt if Muscovado. The cat found it under the radiator.

As we know, this was not an intricate exercise. For me it is actually another much- needed exercise in baking anything. The granola came together easily. In baking it, however, I decided it wasn't dry enough and put it back in the oven for a time. Finally I figured it might get too dark and took it out. It was perfect.

It cooled nicely.I stirred it on the half-sheet pan with a long-pronged fork every now and again to keep it separated and moving around. It was not soggy at all and behaved itself very well. In fact it was acting like some sort of dry cereal. I tasted it. Well. It was absolutely delicious. The Muscovado sugar and other ingredients were wonderful together. My interest had now been piqued. Once again, Rose had not let me down. 

The instructions for the dough looked best for me In the food processor method I thought. So, I mixed up the ingredients for the dough, the sugars, butter, egg and vanilla. Lastly the flour mixture.

For me it seemed that the best implement for mixing of granola and dough together was my large wooden spoon. The large dough package was then refrigerated an hour plus. Then that package was divided into thirds. Two were kept refrigerated while the first mixture were made into 42 g balls, put onto a baking sheet 2 inches apart, and pressed down by the palm as laid down. My kitchen is small and hot and the dough is sticky so best to get them into the oven fast. I did roll mine into weighed 42 g balls using 'floured hands' but I may not have flattened them enough placing them on the pan. I didn't experience width, but did have the softness that could have accounted for caused the largeness in width, and softness causing the cookies to fall apart if moved. I don't know. They were less crumbly, the next day but still a problem.

I made two batches on the cookie sheet and one batch on a half sheet. I was curious to see what would happen on the half-pan. What happened did. I believe Rose addressed this in discussion of baking sheets vs baking pans. I may not have it correctly, but it was something similar. The heat was too intense with closed up sides, and the cookies had not enough air circulation to offset the extra heat without the opening of the sides that  the cookie sheet provides on the sides. Anyway, I watched them closely. The chocolate began to ooze out like caramel and they, themselves, were oozing somewhat. I removed them. They were the same color as the others, but chocolate more running and more cookie more pliable. All of the cookies are probably better today, but I will never know. I would like to see the attributes of the ones Rose likes just warm out of the oven.

After baking, each batch cooled one minute and then was transferred to a wire rack. With the last batch I forgot to transfer them over and in the morning I could  hardly get them off the original pan. I had to push hard with the little spatula to accomplish that. None broke but we were lucky.

I had eaten about three cookies in the night and my husband as well. In the morning he
indicated he really likes 'your cookies'.. I wish, however, that they had a little less moistness. Perhaps after a day, but warm from the oven doesn't seem possible without breaking apart into pieces. I took a box of the cookies to a meeting where the chocolate was a little me messy. I put them in the container with paper towels between the layers. I also had refrigerated them for about 30 minutes before the meeting. Some obviously liked them more than others. One lady said she thought they were different. I told her  they were baked each in a somewhat different way.

Of our own Alpha comments at this time I have only seen one comment and that was Patricia's saying they were 3 inches in diameter. I am curious about what the comments are from the rest of us and what original ideas spring forth in the form of "Luxury".