No-Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
Yeah, that's right, another no-butter cookie recipe. Am I obsessed? Maybe. Am I okay with that? Absofreakinglutely.
Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Finally!!!
A while back, in my double chocolate chip cookie recipe post, I stated that I think there are three classic cookies everyone should have a recipe for: chocolate chip cookies, double chocolate chip cookies, and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.
At that time, I had already posted a no-butter chocolate chip cookie recipe, a butter chocolate chip cookies recipe, and a no-butter double chocolate chip cookie recipe. And mentioned that I was still working on an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe.
Well, I'm pleased to say that I've completed my task. These cookies have been a long time coming.
I've tried out dozens of oatmeal cookie recipes these past few months. With and without butter. And even with brown butter *heart flutters.* But none of the recipes stood out to me. Even the ones with brown butter. Preposterous, I know. I never thought it was possible either.
So, after much disappointment and heartbreak and disillusionment with my sub-par oatmeal cookie recipe testing results, I decided it was time to stop scouring the web for more recipes and to develop my very own oatmeal cookie recipe from scratch.
I had a few goals in mind for my final oatmeal chocolate chip cookies:
1 - they had to be quick and easy to prepare
2 - they had to be full of that earthy oatmeal flavor
3 - they had to be SOFT and CHEWY
4 - they had to be packed with chocolate chunks
5 - they had to be the best oatmeal chocolate chip cookies I had ever tasted
Did I succeed? Um, HECK YEAH.
Are these no-butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies quick and easy? You betcha. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl, pour in the wet, give the whole thing a good stir, and bake the cookies off. No chilling-dough-in-fridge requirement for these.
Oh, and no machine. Because you don't have to cream butter for these babies. These oatmeal cookies are completely free of butter, and use oil (canola, vegetable, or coconut) as a replacement. YAS.
Are these no-butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies full of that hearty and earthy oatmeal flavor? Oh yeah. These cookies use a generous amount of quick oats and rolled oats, so you get a combination of both those flavors and textures.
I prefer quick oats to rolled oats in my oatmeal cookies (a discovery I made after tasting many, many oatmeal cookies), but I also wanted to include a little rolled oats in these cookies for the contrasting texture they lend.
I also used white whole wheat flour in this recipe in place of all-purpose flour, because I found that the earthiness from the whole wheat complemented the earthiness from the oats so well. So, so well. But you can use regular flour if you prefer. No judgement.
Are these no-butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies soft and chewy? You better believe they are. I went to great lengths to formulate a recipe that yielded some of the chewiest oatmeal cookies out there.
First, I added honey to the recipe. Besides for its awesome flavor, honey tends to make cookies super chewy and soft and stay that way for daaaaaays. Second, I used only brown sugar in this recipe. Brown sugar also does wonders in making cookies soft and tender and, you guessed it, CHEWY. Third, I added cornstarch to the ingredient list, because cornstarch = soft and chewy. And fourth, I omitted eggs from this recipe.
Yes, these oatmeal cookies are completely egg-free. No eggs. Nada. None. At all.
Which also means these cookies are vegan, if you swap the honey for maple syrup, which would probably work just fine.
But why no eggs? I found that the eggs counteracted the effect of the chewiness resulting from the honey (confusing sentence, sorry). But somehow, adding even just a single egg to the recipe made the cookies a lot less chewy. And less flavorful. Without the egg, these cookies are more dense and compressed and rich and amazing.
Are these no-butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies packed with chocolate chunks? Ha, rhetorical question. You already know the answer to that one. (The answer is yes, yes they are. These cookies are loaded with oozing, melting, warm chocolate hunks.)
And don't even think about putting raisins in these.
I'm sorry, I'm only kidding. I don't mean to bully you into leaving raisins out. To each their own. So feel free to put raisins in these cookies if you're into the whole oatmeal raisin cookie thing. Really, do what you want. Can I say that you won't totally be missing out on puddles of melting bittersweet chocolate? No. Can I say that I don't think it would be one of the worst decisions you'll ever make? No, in all honesty I cannot. But please, put those raisins in if you'd like some shriveled grapes in your cookies instead of chunks of chocolate. Go right ahead. Nobody is going to stop you.
And are these no-butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies the best oatmeal cookies I've ever tasted? Let me answer that with another question: would I post the second best oatmeal chocolate chip cookies I've ever tasted?
So folks, there you have it. Easy, quick, soft, chewy, dense, rich, hearty, earthy, no-butter, chocolate-chunk-packed oatmeal cookies.
no-butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies
Yield: 20 cookies
1 cup white whole wheat flour (or all-purpose flour)
1 cup quick oats
1/4 cup rolled oats (or more quick oats)
1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup canola, vegetable or coconut oil
4 tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
5 oz. chocolate chips/chunks
Preheat oven to 350 F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, stir together the first 8 dry ingredients, through salt.
In a small pot or in the microwave, melt together the oil, honey, and vanilla extract.
Pour wet mixture into dry ingredients and stir till just combined. Let dough cool a bit before mixing in chocolate chips/chunks last so they don't melt.
Round medium sized pieces of dough between palms and space balls evenly onto baking sheet. Don't flatten.
Bake cookies for 9-11 minutes, or until edges just begin to turn golden. Let cookies firm up on sheets for 10 minutes before moving.
On a completely unrelated note, guilty:
photo from dump a day dot com
