Thursday, May 5, 2016

Salted oatmeal cookies: a recipe

Salted oatmeal cookies, the perfect blend of sweet and savory -- there's a reason they've been dubbed 'crack cookies'.

Salted oatmeal cookies

Note: Recipe and photos updated May 2016.

Salted cookies sound like an oxymoron, right?

Wrong. So wrong. So very, very wrong.

These cookies were first described to me as "cookie crack" and I can now bear witness that that is a perfect characterization.

Even though I have a bunch of healthier cookie recipes, I'm not even going to pretend that this is one of those. Yes, there are oats in it but there is also a crapload of butter and sugar which cancel out the oaty benefits.

But you will not care.

The balance of savory/sweet is absolutely perfect. You cannot eat just one. Hellz, you can't eat just six!

So please do not waste these on children. Repeat: PLEASE DO NOT WASTE THESE ON CHILDREN!

These are grown-up cookies.

Salted oatmeal cookies

Crack cookies, if you will.

UPDATE: Since this is one of my earliest recipes, I'm curious if you have ever made my salted oatmeal crack cookies. Leave a comment: The Ninj wants to know.


Salted oatmeal cookies

Salted Oatmeal Cookies

(from The Washington Post)

Ingredients:
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 3/4 cups flour
2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
coarse sea salt

Directions:
In the bowl of a stand mixer with a paddle attachment*, beat the butter for a few minutes until light and fluffy. Add the sugars, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon, mixing until well combined. Add the eggs and vanilla extract, mixing until incorporated. Lastly, add the flour and oats, mixing until just blended. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill the dough for one hour before baking.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Roll the dough into medium-sized balls (think golf balls) and place about 2 inches apart on the baking sheet. Sprinkle each ball generously with sea salt. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until the cookies begin to turn golden -- be super careful not to overbake! Cool completely on a wire rack.

* This recipe, among others, benefits from the scraping beater blade for your Kitchen Aid stand mixer -- no manual side-scraping required and it does the best and fastest job of whipping butter I have ever seen!


www.yankeekitchenninja.com
-- print recipe --

8 comments:

  1. My mom makes basically these same cookies with chocolate chips at my house... and we also call them "crack" cookies :-)

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  2. Oh. My. God. That would be DOUBLE CRACK!! I think I need to try that ASAP, Meg!!

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  3. I've just started baking with these salty sweet combos but have yet to try salt on cookies. It sounds like a delicious idea. I have a sweet treat linky on my blog every week called "Sweets for a Saturday" and I'd like to invite you to stop by this weekend and link your cookies up. http://sweet-as-sugar-cookies.blogspot.com

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  4. This has nothing to do with crack cookies -- I just a saw on the Burlington Free Press that BTV is one of the top ten "foodie cities". I'm sure that you're contributing to that distinction. Colette

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  5. These cookies are unbelievable. I'm a purist when it comes to baking, and I love how simple these are. Also, I don't have much of a sweet tooth -- I prefer to pair sweet with salty, savory, sour, etc. so these are right up my alley. Thanks for this recipe! Now, I must get back to my kitchen to devour the remaining 14 cookies.

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  6. YAY! Happy to hear we have another convert to the crack cookies. :-)

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  7. Well. Hm. I ate 7 and still want more. Indeed, crack cookies :)

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    1. Sweet -- another convert! I almost feel as if I should apologize for getting you hooked. Almost. ;-)

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