Finally, our last Christmas cookie for this season! As we close out this year, we’ll end with a cookie (based on a recipe from the New York Times) that feels appropriate for the holiday season – after all, the icing on top looks kind of like snow – but can really be served at any time of year. We – well, Miriam in particular – liked that these aren’t your typical oat cookies, because they’re not stuffed with raisins or anything like that. Instead you’ve just got oats, some seasonings and sweetness, and a nice frosting to cover the cookie. These were also pretty simple and baked up easily, so you don’t have to spend a lot of time and effort for this nice treat. There’s still a little time in the holiday season to whip these up, so read on!
To make these, you’ll need:
- Oats
- Flour
- Sugar
- Brown sugar
- An egg
- Cinnamon
- Vanilla extract
- Baking soda
- Half a stick of butter
- Milk
- Powdered sugar
For these cookies, you’ll need to break out your stand mixer and fit it with a whisk attachment. In the bowl of the mixer add your egg, 1/2 cup of sugar, a packed 1/4 cup of brown sugar, 2 teaspoons of cinnamon, a teaspoon of vanilla, and 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda. Mix on a high speed for about 2 minutes, until everything comes together, then melt all your butter (it should be 4 tablespoons) and add that in, mixing at a medium speed.
In a separate bowl, combine a cup of oats, a cup of flour, and a pinch of salt, then stir this by hand into the mixture that you already have. Take your dough and form it into 16 rounded scoops, and place those on baking sheets lined with parchment paper, making sure each cookie dough portion is spaced at least 2 inches apart.
Bake at 350°F for 12 minutes or so, until the edges of each cookie are very lightly browned, then take them out of the oven, bang the baking sheet down once to help the cookies settle into a more flattened shape, and let cool.
Meanwhile, mix 3/4 cup of powdered sugar with 5 teaspoons of milk and stir until you have a smooth and thick icing. You can add in more sugar by the teaspoon as needed until you get a consistency that isn’t runny but is still liquid. Once the cookies are mostly cooled, dip the top of each one into the icing, then let any excess flow back into the bowl before putting the cookies again on the baking sheet to let the icing harden.
Once the icing has solidified onto the cookies, they’re ready to eat!
We liked that there was a lot of flavor in these cookies – oats, two kinds of sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla – coming from some simple ingredients that you can easily find in the baking aisle. The oats gave some nice texture and crunch, while the icing on top was a smooth extra bite of sweetness. These are perfect year-round cookies, so at any time in the new year you can bake these up for a great, easy treat. And now that 2023 is almost upon us, we’re closing out another year of fun Christmas baking, and we hope you liked our cookie selections this year!