oatmeal snickerdoodles

Oatmeal Snickerdoodles – combining dense, chewy oatmeal cookies with all the cinnamon goodness of a snickerdoodle!

I’d never tried a snickerdoodle (or even heard of them, honestly) until I made them myself last year. Everyone loved them, including me, and I’ve been looking forward to trying more versions of the recipe ever since. What’s not to love about a cinnamon sugar cookie? When I found this oatmeal snickerdoodle recipe it sounded like the perfect combination – cinnamon oatmeal cookies. Yum! 

Oatmeal Snickerdoodles – combining dense, chewy oatmeal cookies with all the cinnamon goodness of a snickerdoodle!

I was at the bookstore a while ago and saw a single copy of Maida Heatter’s Cookies tucked in the middle of all the other baking books. Given how many baking cookbooks I have, I was shocked to realize that I didn’t have a single one of her books. A gross oversight on my part, obviously.

If not for her name, though, I doubt I would have bought this book. It is chock full of recipes (225 according to Amazon), but there’s not a single photo. Not even on the cover. I love flipping through the pages of a beautiful cookbook and choosing what to try based on the photos. And I’ll admit, I’ve bought more than one book purely on the basis of how pretty the photos are (and am happily surprised when the recipes live up to that standard). So this is a bit of a let-down. I have to actually read the recipes to decide what to make? *sigh*

Oatmeal Snickerdoodles – combining dense, chewy oatmeal cookies with all the cinnamon goodness of a snickerdoodle!

There’s a huge range of types of cookies in this book, and I had a hard time choosing. But then Oatmeal Snickerdoodles sounded like a good fall cookie. And of course, this is where I hit a snag. All of the ingredients made perfect sense and were pretty standard cookie fare – 2 cups flour, 1 cup butter, 2 eggs, etc. – until I got to the last ingredient. Ten cups of oatmeal. TEN. Obviously that had to be a typo. I searched online for this recipe, and with a little help found someone who’d baked these cookies from one of Maida’s other cookbooks. Other than the quantity of oatmeal (now a much more reasonable 1-1/2 cups), it’s exactly the same recipe. So I went with that.

Only the second recipe I’ve tried from this book and already a typo? Not an auspicious beginning, I’ve got to say. Most of the reviews for this book on Amazon are very positive, though, so maybe I just got unlucky and chose the one bad recipe of the bunch. We’ll see. The first cookie I made was amazing, so I’m certainly not giving up hope on this book.

Oatmeal Snickerdoodles – combining dense, chewy oatmeal cookies with all the cinnamon goodness of a snickerdoodle!

Once I got that ingredient issue sorted, the recipe came together very nicely. I was a bit concerned to see the temperature is listed as a whopping 400°F, but I think that high temperature almost caramelizes the sugar coating – the cookies get quite dark once baked, unlike a traditional snickerdoodle which stays a lovely golden colour. They’re soft, and the oatmeal gives them both a chewy texture and oat-y flavour, which is coupled with a nice cinnamon flavour from the coating. It’s nothing fancy, but a lovely cinnamon oatmeal cookie. The type of cookie you want to fill your cookie jar with.

The recipe stated to just place rounded teaspoonfuls of dough on the baking sheet and sprinkle with the sugar-cinnamon mixture. I did my first tray that way, and while they spread out just fine, the cinnamon was limited to a small area in the center of the cookie. For the rest of them, I flattened the cookies slightly before sprinkling with the cinnamon – this way the cinnamon covered more of the surface of the cookie. Definitely the way to go!

The other thing I modified slightly in this recipe is that I opted to mix the oats in with the dry ingredients, rather than adding them separately after mixing the dough. I could see no reason to do it that way, and combining them with the rest of the dry ingredients helps ensure they’re distributed evenly, and also helps avoid overworking the dough.

Oatmeal Snickerdoodles – combining dense, chewy oatmeal cookies with all the cinnamon goodness of a snickerdoodle!

oatmeal snickerdoodles

<h2>oatmeal snickerdoodles</h2>

Adapted from Maida Heatter's Cookies. The recipe states it makes 54 cookies measured by rounded teaspoons; I got 50 when I used my usual tablespoon-sized cookie scoop.

ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour

1-1/2 cups old-fashioned oatmeal

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

2 eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

for the topping

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400°F.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, oats, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugars together on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 or 4 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Add the vanilla and beat again to incorporate.

Turn the mixer down to low and add the dry ingredients, mixing until just combined.

Using a small cookie dough scoop or rounded teaspoons, portion the dough onto the baking sheets about 2 inches apart to allow for spreading. Press down slightly with the palm of your hand.

Using a small spoon, sprinkle a generous amount of the cinnamon-sugar mixture over the top of each cookie. I used quite a bit and still only ended up using about half of the mixture, so it's probably safe to make a smaller amount if you want.

Bake for about 10-12 minutes, until lightly browned all over, rotating the baking sheet halfway through. Allow to cool on a wire rack for a few minutes before removing the cookies from the pan and allowing them to cool completely.

Comments: 6

  1. Elizabeth @ SugarHero.com November 7, 2014 at 10:07 pm Reply

    Of COURSE you bought another cookie cookbook! You must be easy to shop for for Christmas. 😉 And I totally agree, no pictures are almost a deal-breaker for me. I even get skittish if only some of the recipes have pictures! These cookies sound awesome–adding oats seems like a great idea for a snickerdoodle!

    • laurel @ wannacomewith November 8, 2014 at 1:06 pm Reply

      Well I think I WOULD be easy to shop for if I didn’t already own all the books! 😛

  2. Jessica October 17, 2016 at 12:01 pm Reply

    Oh. My. Word.

    I also bought this book, but unlike you, I made it exactly like the recipe stated. We are now left with hard oatmeal balls in our kitchen. I was so mad. Now I’m happy I wasn’t the only one who wondered how 10 cups of oatmeal seemed normal! 🙂

    Thanks for writing this post! I feel a lot more sane. 🙂

    • laurel @wannacomewith October 17, 2016 at 3:29 pm Reply

      Hahaha! When I first read this recipe, I couldn’t find anyone else online who had the same issue and I felt like I was taking crazy pills. No offence, but I’m so glad to hear I wasn’t alone. I feel like we’ve bonded over our crappy cookbooks 😉

  3. D Heab December 6, 2016 at 8:39 am Reply

    Those look so delicious! The recipe makes a BUNCH! Looking forward to trying. Thanks for posting! I like to post recipes on my blog, but definitely don’t have as many cookbooks as you! Lol. I do like buying them though. I have some Paula Dean cookbooks that I don’t regret buying, as well as some of my husbands grandma’s cookbooks from the 1930’s! Thanks again for posting.

    • laurel @wannacomewith December 7, 2016 at 10:24 pm Reply

      Thanks! Those old cookbooks are fantastic. I inherited a couple of my mom’s cookbooks from the 60s, and a friend gifted me with a turn of the century book he found in a used bookstore (there was a recipe for squirrel! eek!). And my collection just keeps growing, it’s ridiculous 😉

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