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.

Mexican-Style Granola

We're on our next to last week cooking up recipes by Rick Bayless over at I Heart Cooking Clubs.  With this week being "What's in your lunchbox?" week, I selected a granola recipe of Rick's that would be perfect for a kid's school snack as well as easy to take to the office to munch on during the day (a word of caution...this has peanuts in it if your child has an allergy).

My big 'child', a.k.a. Lovey, doesn't have to worry about that and he has really taken to this snack.  He has been enjoying it with his cappuccino in the morning.

We have our nuts:  blanched almonds, raw peanuts, pumpkin seeds, and raw cashews.  I couldn't find whole almonds that were blanched, nor could I find raw peanuts without the brown papery skins on them.  No worries.  I can improvise without stressing; hey, it's granola.

We have our grains:  old-fashioned rolled oats and amaranth.  The amaranth called for in the recipe was puffed amaranth.  Not only did I have to educate myself on what amaranth is I also could not, for the life of me, find it puffed.  I found numerous boxes of amaranth flakes but no puffed.  Once again, no worries, it's still granola.

According to my favorite online food dictionary, amaranth was once considered a weed but is now acknowledged as a nourishing high-protein food.  The seeds are used as cereal (puffed or flaked) or ground into flour.

Finally, we have our coating and binding agents:  vegetable oil and honey

Gently combine the nuts and grains, right on your baking sheet.  Make sure your baking sheet has sides.  This mixture will be baked for a short time before adding your coating.

Thoroughly combine the oil and honey and pour over the warm granola mixture.

Stir to coat all of your ingredients.

Bake it up

Pack it up
Eat it up


Mexican-Style Granola
Makes about 3 cups
Recipe adapted from Rick Bayless'  Mexico - One Plate at a Time

Ingredients:
1 - 1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/4 cup peanuts (the kind with the reddish skin removed), preferably raw
1/4 cup blanched almonds
1/4 cup hulled pumpkin seeds, preferably not toasted
1/2 cup puffed amaranth or amaranth flakes
1/4 cup cashews, preferably not toasted
3 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1/4 cup honey

Method:
Heat the oven to 300 ° F.  On a baking sheet with sides, combine the oats, peanuts, almonds, pumpkin seeds, amaranth and cashews.  Bake for 10 minutes.

In a small bowl, combine the oil and honey, stirring to thoroughly combine.  Drizzle over the warm mixture, then stir until everything is evenly coated.  Return to the oven and bake, stirring every few minutes, until the mixture is a rich golden brown and the nuts smell toasty - about 20 minutes.  Cool completely then store in a tightly closed container.

I'm sharing this post at IHCC