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Oatmeal Overload Cookies
I’ve started my Christmas baking, how about you? One of my favorite memories growing up was all the Christmas cookies we baked. We’d start a few weeks before Christmas and froze them until it was time to make all of the cookie plates we did for family and friends. We made candies and fudge to fill in the spaces on the plates and it was all so yummy!
These cookies are so good and moist. I used one of my favorite overloaded oatmeal cookies. These were filled with Quaker Oats, Mars M&M’s® Holiday Baking Miniswith theirpretty red and green candies, coconut and dried cranberries. You could add chopped nuts too if desired, I’d only add 1 cup if you do. To get them ready for gift giving I am packing them this year in Glad® Holiday Edition Big Bowls. The cool thing about these bowls is they are big enough to hold quite a few cookies so I can add new cookies to them as I bake. It will save me precious time at the last minute if I just have to take them out of the freezer when it is time to give them away. I found everything I needed to bake these cookies at my local Target store. Be sure to check at Target to see what offers there might be fromQuaker®, Glad® and Mars®.
One of my favorite Christmas stories was a year when I went up to help my grandmother finish wrapping her presents on Christmas Eve. We got done at about 11 and by then I’d been joined by one of my aunts and my uncle. When I left I was just out on the sidewalk and I heard a donkey. Now mind you we lived in the center of town so that shouldn’t of been happening. I went back in the house and told all there was a donkey down at the house on the corner. They all laughed at me and went out to look. Sure enough no donkey! So they went back in the house convinced I was loosing it. As soon as they were safely in the house he started to Hee Haw again. I went back in and got them and sure enough he disappeared again to the back yard. It took at least 15 minutes before they all saw them. In the meantime my grandmother had made some hot cocoa and got some Christmas cookies out. It was a perfect way to end the evening. The next day my cousin had been woke up by that donkey and thought she was imagining things too. We had a good laugh about it.
Oatmeal cookies loaded with Mars M&M's® Baking Bits, cranberries and coconut.
Ingredients
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1 cup butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 large eggs
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 cups Quaker Oats Quick Oatmeal
12 oz. Mars M&M's® Holiday Baking Minis
1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup packed coconut
Instructions
Cream together the sugars and butter with the vanilla.
Add the eggs and blend thoroughly.
Add the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.
Add the cranberries, coconut, oatmeal and Mars M&M's® Holiday Baking Minis. Mixture will be kind of loose at this point. Let set for 5 minutes. Do not add any more flour. The batter will thicken as it sets.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Use a medium scoop and place batter on a greased cookie sheet or one lined with parchment paper or Silpat sheets.
Bake for 10 minutes or until cookies are done in the centers. (I baked mine at 325 degrees for 12 minutes because that is the best temperature for my oven.) Cool on a cookie rack.
Right now the Glad® Holiday Edition Packing Products (bowls of various sizes and cute Holiday saran wrapping is available)should be able to found on one of the end caps in Target, theMars M&M’s® Holiday Baking Minis in the back of the store where the candy and Christmas items are. Quaker Oats are atan endcap with new seasonal holiday packaging at Target.
What’s your favorite Christmas Cookie Recipe? Does it have a family history?I’ll be sharing a few more family recipes leading up to Christmas so I hope you come back.
Leave me a comment please, I love comments. Merry Christmas!
If your oatmeal cookies turn out too hard or dry, here are a few possible reasons: Overbaking: Overbaking is a common culprit for dry cookies. Make sure you follow the recommended baking time and temperature in your recipe. Typically, oatmeal cookies should bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 10-12 minutes.
For soft cookies, use: Brown sugar, as it has a high moisture content and retains moisture better than white sugar. Also, when combined with eggs, brown sugar can prevent spreading (taller cookies tend to be softer and fluffier). Shortening instead of butter or in addition to butter.
Eggs bind the ingredients and make for moist, chewy cookies. Adding too many eggs can result in gummy, cake-like cookies. Adding too few eggs can result in dry, crumbly cookies.
Check package to make sure what you used contained at least 70% fat. A spread with less fat, diet "margarines" or spreads in tubs contain have too much water. The water creates steam, causing the cookies to puff.
Here's a baker's trick you'll find in our new Monster Cookies recipe: Adding a piece of fresh white bread to the storage container will keep cookies from becoming hard or stale.
Remember moisture is the key! White sugar creates crispier cookies and brown sugar creates chewier cookies. Why use melted butter? Melted butter creates cookies with a different texture compared to cookies made with softened or creamed butter.
it's going to beat too much air into the butter. and it will cause the cookies to spread way too much. so those are the main issues that can cause too much spreading.
An oven that hasn't reached the correct baking temperature causes the fat in the dough to melt before the cookie bakes through. As a result, cookies spread too much. Heat the oven for at least 10 minutes. A good rule of thumb is to turn the oven on just before you begin measuring ingredients.
How to Tell When Oatmeal Cookies Are Done. Many drop cookie recipes, including oatmeal cookies, specify baking until the edges are golden or light brown; often, the recipe also specifies that centers should appear set (not jiggly and raw). In these cases, you can usually tell by simply taking a look at the cookies.
First, we substituted baking powder for baking soda. The baking powder gave the dough more lift, which in turn made the cookies less dense and a bit chewier. Second, we eliminated the cinnamon recommended not only in the Quaker Oats recipe but in lots of other recipes.
Try using baking powder instead of baking soda. Baking soda encourages spreading while baking powder puffs the cookies up. If your recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of baking soda, you would use 3 to 4 teaspoons of baking powder. Caution: This could result in an unwanted flavor shift.
Dry – “Dry” or “Crumbly” dough is a product of over-mixing or using too much of any ingredient during the mixing process. This can be reversed by adding one to two tablespoons of liquid (water, milk or softened butter) to your mix.
Cookies become hard when the moisture in them evaporates. This can be caused by leaving them out in the air for too long, baking them for too long, or storing them improperly. The lack of moisture makes the cookies hard and dry, which makes them difficult to enjoy.
This may seem counterintuitive—after all, isn't flour a key ingredient in baking? Yes, but if you add too much flour, your cookies won't spread as they bake. Too much flour causes the dough to become dry and crumbly, which prevents it from flattening out during baking.
Too much sugar can cause cookies to come out flat and crispy instead of soft and chewy. This goes for both white sugar and brown sugar. Not enough flour could also be the culprit. Especially with baking, there's much less wiggle room when it comes to having the proper ingredient ratios.
Just wrap a cookie or two in a damp paper towel and then put them in the microwave for about 10 to 15 seconds. The moisture from the paper towel should soften the cookies right up. So if you wonder how to soften hard cookies quickly? Microwave is the way!
Introduction: My name is Carlyn Walter, I am a lively, glamorous, healthy, clean, powerful, calm, combative person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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