Toffee and Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

If I’m being honest, when it comes to chocolate chip cookies, I’m a purist. In other words, oatmeal need not apply. Nothing against oats, for sure, but they just don’t belong in my version of the perfect chocolate chip cookie — a thick and chewy cookie, preferably large in size, filled with chips, but not too many, a little salty, uber-butterscotch-y, and consumed minutes after leaving the oven.

Here’s the thing though, I’m in cookie-making mode over-drive right now due to a broken leg, and the instant oats (yes, my oatmeal cookies call for instant — sorry, haters) and toffee bits in my cupboard just won’t stop staring at me every time I roll by in my office chair (i.e. makeshift wheelchair).

And so it was just a matter of time before a toffee and chocolate oatmeal cookie was going to make its way onto this here blog. My jumping off point — like so many classic recipes that I revamp here — was a recipe of my mother-in-law’s  (which looks a lot like this recipe for soft oatmeal cookies), coupled with my own oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for Baked Occasions.

Melting of the fat (a combo of butter and shortening — the first for flavor, the second to preclude spreading), a yolk, plus an egg, and a bit of Lyle’s Golden Syrup were all in order to guarantee chewiness. The toffee bits plus extra vanilla and more brown than white sugar guaranteed a deeply butterscotch flavor, and the addition of whole wheat pastry flour, rather than all-purpose, seemed an appropriate addition to a cookie filled with oats — although truth be told, you’d never know it was in there. The resulting toffee and chocolate oatmeal cookies filled with — dare I say — the perfect amount of chocolate chips, has garnered extreme praise from the oatmeal cookie lovers in my general vicinity (my book club and immediate family) and i’m inclined to trust them. Here’s to hoping you will, too.

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toffee and chocolate oatmeal cookies

Recipe Author Jessie Sheehan

Servings 18

Ingredients

• 3 cups quick-cooking/instant oats
• 1 1/2 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup toffee bits
• 3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 stick unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup vegetable shortening
• 1 3/4 cup light brown sugar
• 2 Tbsp granulated sugar
• 1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract
• 1 large egg
• 2 yolks
• 3 Tbsp lyle's golden syrup or light corn syrup
• maldon sea salt for sprinkling pre-baking

Instructions

• in a medium mixing bowl, combine the oats, flour, salt, and soda, and whisk to combine. add the toffee and chips and whisk again. set aside.
• melt the butter and shortening together in a small heatproof bowl in the microwave or on the stovetop. place the melted butter/shortening in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, along with the two sugars and vanilla, and beat on medium to medium high speed until the mixture is combined and lightens slightly in color.
• add the egg, yolks, and syrup, and continue beating until just combined. add the dry ingredients all at once, and mix on low speed, only until just combined. there should still be dry bits of flour and oats.
• remove the bowl from the mixer, and continue mixing by hand with a rubber spatula. scoop the cookie dough onto a parchment lined cookie sheet, using a 1/4-cup sized scoop, or dry measuring cup (if using a dry measuring cup, you can flatten your scoops of dough slightly with your hands). wrap the tray in plastic and place in the refrigerator for at least 24 hours and up to 72.
• preheat the oven to 350 degrees, sprinkle the cookie scoops with maldon sea salt, and bake the cookies, six at a time, for about 10 minutes, rotating the sheet after 5 minutes. the cookies will look very much the same after ten minutes, as when you placed them in the oven. remove them anyway. once removed from the oven, gently flatten each cookie with a spatula: the cookies will hardly spread at all and so will still be cookie-scoop shaped. let cool slightly and serve warm.

Notes

two different folks have found these cookies to be delicious, but crumbly. a cookie with a crumbly texture, as perhaps you can surmise, was not my intention. to achieve a chewy texture, be sure you do not over bake the cookies - ten minutes in a properly calibrated oven is all you need - and they may not look "done" when you pull them, but trust me, they are.