Moist Rolled Oak Cookies

Source: Joy of Baking.com
Moist Rolled Oak Cookies to-die-for !

TIP: Allow the frozen butter to thaw to room temperature before you begin work. Do not melt butter!

Ingredients:
1 cup (110 grams) walnuts or pecans, toasted and chopped (optional) - omitted
3/4 cup (170 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature - reduce to 150 g
1 cup (210 grams) packed light brown sugar - reduce to 50 g
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup (105 grams) all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt - omitted as I use salted butter
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 cups (260 grams) old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cup dried cranberries, cherries, or raisins or 1 cup white or dark chocolate chips (optional) - omitted

Method:
1. Use an electric mixer or hand mixer to beat the butter and sugar until creamy and smooth, about 2 - 3 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla extract and beat to combine.

2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, and ground cinnamon. Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture and beat until incorporated. Stir in the nuts (optional), oats, and dried cranberries or chocolate chips, if any. Remember to adjust the sugar amount if you omit the nuts, raisins, etc. I used 50gm brown sugar because I omitted dried cranberries, raisins, etc.

3. For large cookies, use 1/4 cup of batter e.g. use an ice cream scoop and space the cookies about 2 inches (5 cm) apart on the baking sheet. Then wet your hand and flatten the cookies slightly with your fingers so they are about 1/2 inch (1.25 cm) thick.

4. Bake the cookies for about 12 - 15 minutes at 350°F or 177°C until light golden brown around the edges but still soft and a little wet in the center. Remove from oven and let the cookies cool a few minutes on the baking sheet before transferring them to a wire rack to cool.

Makes about 20 - 24 large cookies. I used a 30ml bottle cap to spoon out the dough, ending with 21 large cookies. And I baked for 10-11 min at 180°C as I prefer the oat cookies to be really moist.

Read more: Moist Oak Cookies

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UPDATES: 15-Nov-2011 to 1-Dec-2011 (with several batches made in between!)

A Side Tale
My dear wife jogged to Phoon Huat at Bencoolen Street this morning (i.e.today, 15-11-11) to buy pure vanilla pods. The Filipino staff said they didn't have any, and suggested its house brand vanila extract. A 25ml bottle of extract costs $2.50, it's produced and made in Indonesia from pure vanilla beans in alcohol. Add bought 2 bottles.

I opened a bottle to add 1 tsp of the extract to make oat cookies. Strange, I did not detect any vanilla flavor. There was no fragrance at all! The following day I went to the shop to return the vanilla extract. The staff pointed out the bottle I had opened was not the "Extract" but the "Essence". Apparently my wife had bought 2 different bottles, the one ("Essence") which I had opened and brought along, and the other unopened bottle ("Extract"). Well! If that would explain for the lack of any flavor, it speaks volumes about their business ethics. Not one to be picky I quietly asked for the pure vanilla beans they told me were stored in the fridge. Oh yes, apparently the shop had stocked the vanilla beans all along, except the Filipino staff knew them as vanilla "beans", not pods! He didn't understand what my wife had asked for!

I made 2 batches of cookies today, baked at 180°C for 10 min exactly. The proportions were:

Butter 150g
Brown sugar 50 g
1 egg
1 tsp 'pure' vanila extract (turned out no flavor! *sigh*)
Plain flour 105 g
1 tsp clove powder (don't grind as you'll need a coffee grinder, better to buy from a retial outlet than to grind your own!)
1/2 tsp baking soda
Rolled oats 260 g

As an aside, in an earlier test batch I had used more flour and less oats. The cookies turned out drier and didn't appeal to me as much as my first batch. Lesson? Don't adjust the recipe! It's fine if you adjust for sweetness but definitely not the proportion of oats to flour!

On today's baking, the cookies again turned out drier than I would have liked. Possibly it was because I had made them in smaller pieces. I flavored one batch with clove, the other with cinnamon. Thus I was able to get 3 flavors: clove, cinnamon, and a combination of cinnamon and cloves, using 1 scoop from each, piled on top of each other, and pressed into a round shape.

Nice!