January's Cookie of the Month: Soft Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

As I mentioned previously, co-blogger Rebecca gave me The Ultimate Chocolate Cookie Book: From Chocolate Melties to Whoopie Pies, Chocolate Biscotti to Black and Whites, with Dozens of Chocolate Chip Cookies and Hundreds More by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough for Hanukkah/Christmas/Solstice/Kwanzaa/New Year 2009. My goal this year is to post once a month about my experience baking a recipe from The Ultimate Chocolate Cookie Book. Admittedly, this post is late, but the Soft Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies themselves were actually made on January 31st, so they still count as January's Cookie of the Month.
[A quick editorial warning: the pictures are awful. They're either blurry or in poor lighting or both . . . sorry. I'll try to do better next time.]

When we're not making New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookies at Chez Kelman we often make oatmeal cookies, either with raisins or chocolate chips. But I usually find them too crunchy. I'm not a big fan of crunchy cookies. So when I saw the name of this cookie recipe, I was totally stoked. It's even more exceptional given the authors' professed bias towards crunchy cookies. One neat thing about The Ultimate Chocolate Cookie Book is that they include a handy little icon in the top corner of the recipe to indicate whether the cookie is crunchy, hard, fudgy, chewy, or cakey. The icon for the Soft Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies indicates they are chewy. Sounds like just the oatmeal cookie recipe I've been looking for.
The cookies spread a lot more than I expected, particularly on the insulated baking sheet, less so on the non-insulated baking sheet. I was hoping for a thicker cookie. But they were still chewy with just a bit of crunch around the edges. And the thicker cookies fell apart pretty badly when transferred to the cooling rack even when I let them cool on the cookie sheet for five to seven minutes instead of the one minute suggested by the recipe. If I were you, I'd let these cool on the sheet for as long as your patience can stand.
But unexpected spreading and crumbling aside, these cookies were insanely chocolaty. As you can see in the recipe the ratio of oats to chocolate chips is one to one, which is CRAZY for an oatmeal cookie. I mean, the batter barely holds the chips together there are so many chips. Particularly with the 60% cacao chips, I thought it was a bit much, though my taste tester vehemently disagreed. I prefer a higher dough to chip ratio, but that's me. The next time we make these, and there definitely will be a next time, I think I might follow one of the suggested variations and substitute half the chocolate chips with butterscotch chips or raisins. Oh, that's another cool thing about this book, it has LOTS of suggestions for variations for each cookie.
Soft Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies adapted from The Ultimate Chocolate Cookie Book: From Chocolate Melties to Whoopie Pies, Chocolate Biscotti to Black and Whites, with Dozens of Chocolate Chip Cookies and Hundreds More by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough

Ingredients

• 1 C all-purpose flour
  
• 1 t ground cinnamon
  
• 1/2 t baking soda
  
• 1/2 t salt
  
• 12 T (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter (the book includes all sorts of handy tips both in the introduction and in each recipe, like using cool, not cold, not warm, butter and cutting it into small pieces first, but I'm leaving those out in the interest of (A) reducing my risk of carpal tunnel and (B) feeling less guilty about posting their recipe by trying to encourage you to buy their book)
  
• 1 C dark brown sugar
  
• 3 T sugar
  
• 1 T light corn syrup (yes, I finally broke down and bought corn syrup . . . do you think they'll kick me out of the CSA?)
  
• 1 egg
  
• 1 egg white
  
• 2 T milk
  
• 2 t vanilla extract
  
• 3 C rolled oats
  
• 3 C chocolate chips (I used my Ghiradelli 60% cacao chips that I discovered in the process of perfecting the NYTCCC)
  

Procedure

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Whisk (I sifted) the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl.

2. Soften the butter in a large bowl using an electric mixer at medium speed for about a minute. Add brown sugar, sugar, and corn syrup and beat at medium speed until light consistency and pale brown color, about 2 minutes. Beat in the egg, egg white, milk, and vanilla until smooth. Turn off the beaters, add the flour mixture from step 1, and beat at low speed just until incorporated. Stir in the oats and chocolate chips with a wooden spoon (I used the electric mixer) until the chips are evenly distributed.

3. Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto a large ungreased baking sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake for 13 minutes. Cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

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