Chewy Salted Oatmeal Cookies

 A blog that I regularly read and enjoy is The Bitten Word.  This month Zach and Clay invited readers to participate in their Holiday Cookie Cover to Cover Project.  Participants are assigned a cookie recipe from the food magazines that they cook from every month.  I've participated in their cover to cover projects in the past and it's always fun to see all of the results from their readers.  I was assigned these Chewy Salted Oatmeal Cookies from the December issue of Food and Wine.



With all of my other holiday baking I've been doing I was grateful to have been assigned a easy recipe.  This is your basic dry ingredients combined with your creamed butter/sugar/egg mixture.  What makes these really special is the little dibby dabby garnish of fine crystal sea salt.




The recipe called for a 2 tablespoon ball of dough that you slightly flattened then sprinkled with the sea salt.




They really spread to make a 4" cookie.  Since they are a chewy cookie instead of crisp they tended limp when you would hold the cookie.

I decided to use my 1 tablespoon cookie scoop to make 2-1/2" to 3" cookies.  I liked this result much better.  It didn't change the taste at all, they still spread enough to keep them thin, they kept their shape when you picked them up and the bottoms of the cookie actually caramelized a little bit without making the cookie crispy.

And the taste?  One of the best tasting oatmeal cookies I've had.  The sea salt put these over the top with a soft saltiness that made all of the other flavors pop.

 Chewy Salted Oatmeal Cookies
Adapted from the December 2014 issue of Food and Wine
Yields approx. 6 dozen 3" cookies

Ingredients:
2 cups rolled oats
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
2 sticks unsalted butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
3 large eggs
Flaky sea salt

Mise en Place

• place butter in bowl of stand mixer
• in a large mixing bowl, whisk the oats with the flours, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg
• crack eggs in small bowl

Method:
 Preheat the oven to 350°.  In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle, beat the butter with both sugars and the vanilla at medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Add the eggs 1 at a time and beat until incorporated.  Add the dry ingredients and beat at low speed until just combined.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate the cookie dough until chilled, at least 1 hour.

Line 4 cookie sheets with parchment paper.  Working in 2 batches, using a 1 Tbsp. ice cream scoop, scoop the dough onto the prepared sheets, spaced at least 2 inches apart.  Flatten the cookies slightly and sprinkle each with a pinch of sea salt.  Bake for 10 minutes, until golden brown at the edges; rotate the baking sheets from top to bottom and front to back halfway through baking.  Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to a rack to cool completely.

The cookies can be stored in an airtight container for up to 5 days.  I would suggest placing a piece of wax paper between layers.