Aunt Lolly’s Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe on Food52 (2024)

FAQs

Why are my oatmeal chocolate chip cookies so hard? ›

When adding the flour, be careful not to overmix. (Don't mix too vigorously or too long – follow recipe directions.) Overmixing develops the gluten in the flour, which can produce tough cookies.

Oatmeal raisin cookies are a healthier choice in comparison to chocolate chip cookies. Chocolate chip cookies have less protein and fiber, and more fat, than oatmeal raisin cookies.

You can upgrade your cookie dough by adding spices to it, said Tracy Wilk, lead chef at the Institute of Culinary Education. This can lead to a warm, spicy cookie. To do so, combine ground cinnamon, ginger, and sugar, and then roll your balls of cookie dough in the mix before baking.

Try adding macadamia nuts and white vanilla baking chips, or pack a double punch of peanut flavor with peanut butter chips and chopped peanuts. Make salted butterscotch-pecan cookies by swapping in butterscotch chips and chopped pecans, and then sprinkling your cookies with coarse salt before baking.

Light corn syrup is another ingredient that you can add to cookie dough that will help it stay softer longer. The corn syrup you buy at the grocery store is not the high-fructose corn syrup that soft drinks are made with; it's a sugar that is liquid at room temperature and helps other sugars say liquid at high heat.

The science is simple: According to the flour authorities over at Bob's Red Mill, cornstarch can help “soften the rigid proteins of the flour, resulting in a light and chewy dessert.” “The cornstarch complements the flour in absorbing the liquids, but won't develop gluten structure like the flour will,” stresses ...

But when you're baking, butter triumphs over margarine every time. For cakes, cookies, and pastries, butter (unsalted, that is) provides richer flavor. (It begins as cream, after all, and margarine is made from vegetable oil.) Butter's high fat content is also what gives baked goods their texture.

If you're after a sweeter flavor, opt for milk or white chocolate, but if you want to break down the already sweet cookie dough, go for semisweet or dark chocolate.

Compared to chocolate chip, peanut butter and sugar cookies, oatmeal cookies are marginally more nutritious. Comparing cookies of similar size, an oatmeal cookie has fewer calories than peanut butter or sugar cookies. Oatmeal cookies contain less fat and more protein, fiber and calcium than the others.

If the dough is chilled before baking then the cookies will be slightly more rounded, so if you want slightly flatter cookies then bake them as soon as you have mixed up the dough. But we would not recommend flattening the cookies completely as this will affect the texture.

Which cookies are better, Toll House or Pillsbury? ›

The Nestle Toll House cookies stayed chewier for longer while I found that the Pillsbury cookies hardened and got crunchy throughout more quickly. If you prefer a crunchier cookie that's got some texture on the surface and chocolate chips that are still intact, I think the Pillsbury ready-to-bake dough is for you.

The Best Cookies for Chilling

People always recommend chilling chocolate chip cookies but shortbread, sugar cookies and even these terrific ginger cookies all benefit from a little time in the fridge. Feel free to test it out using your favorite recipes and compare the results.

Don't Overbake!

This isn't a revolutionary tip and is probably quite obvious, but if you leave your cookies in the oven for even a few minutes longer than necessary, the mix will dry too quickly and lead to more rigid, dry cookies.

Butter keeps cookies fluffy in two ways. First, creaming cold butter with sugar creates tiny, uniform air pockets that will remain in the dough it bakes up. Second, cold butter naturally takes a longer time to melt in the oven.

The bread/apple trick

Here's a baker's trick you'll find in our new Monster Cookies recipe: Adding a piece of fresh white bread to the storage container will keep cookies from becoming hard or stale.

Don't Overbake!

This isn't a revolutionary tip and is probably quite obvious, but if you leave your cookies in the oven for even a few minutes longer than necessary, the mix will dry too quickly and lead to more rigid, dry cookies.

The Problem: Your Oven Is Too Hot

If your cookies repeatedly turn out flat, no matter the recipe, chances are your oven is too hot. Here's what's happening. The butter melts super quickly in a too-hot oven before the other ingredients have firmed up into a cookie structure.

Using lower-moisture sugar (granulated) and fat (vegetable shortening), plus a longer, slower bake than normal, produces light, crunchy cookies. That said, using a combination of butter and vegetable shortening (as in the original recipe), or even using all butter, will make an acceptably crunchy chocolate chip cookie.