Chewy Oatmeal Decorating Cookies

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Chewy Oatmeal Decorating Cookies

star rating (12) rate this recipe »
Published prior to 2008

So who says cutout cookies need to be either A) sugar cookies, or B) gingerbread? These chewy oatmeal cookies, with a hint of whole wheat and lots of flavor, are easy to roll and cut out with your favorite shaped cutter.

1 cup (2 sticks, 8 ounces) unsalted butter
3/4 cup (5 5/8 ounces) packed light or dark brown sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
2 cups (8 ounces) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1/2 cup (2 ounces) whole wheat flour, traditional or white wheat
1 cup (3 1/2 ounces) old-fashioned rolled oats
cinnamon sugar (optional)

To prepare the dough: In a medium-sized bowl, beat together the butter and sugar, then add the egg, vanilla, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, and ginger, beating until smooth. Beat in the flours and oats; the mixture may look dry at first, but don’t worry, it’ll come together. Divide the dough into two pieces, wrap each piece in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease (or line with parchment) two baking sheets.

To shape the cookies: Working with one piece of dough at a time, roll it into a circle about 14" in diameter. Use your favorite cutters to cut out cookies, re-rolling and cutting the scraps. Place the cutout cookies on lightly greased or parchment-lined cookie sheets; set them fairly close together, as they don’t spread.

To bake the cookies: Bake the cookies for about 9 to 10 minutes: the shorter amount of time will make softer cookies, the longer amount of time, crisper cookies. Remove the cookies from the oven, sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar, if desired, and transfer to a rack to cool. Repeat with the remaining dough. Decorate as desired.
Yield: 6 1/2 dozen 2 ½" cookies.

Bakers’ tip: When rolling dough for cutout cookies, roll from the center outwards, giving the dough a quarter-turn on the floured surface with each stroke of the pin. This will produce a more tender cookie than rolling back and forth over the dough.

Reviews

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  • star rating 01/21/2012
  • ann15638 from KAF Community
  • The combination of oats and cinnamon makes these cookies smell and taste heavenly! My 4-year-old and I made these as Halloween cutouts and decorated them with royal frosting and edible markers. They turned out beautifully and we received many compliments on them. We're going to make them again for Valentine's day cookies. Thank you, King Arthur Flour, for another great recipe!
  • star rating 01/02/2012
  • Ericabzadeh from KAF Community
  • This cookie is not very sweet. It pairs well with a very sweet icing such as the kaf basic cookie icing. Without a frosting or icing I believe it would be too bland.
  • star rating 12/20/2011
  • Esther from Lexington, Kentucky
  • An excellent cookie! It was a bit hard to cut out (somewhat sticky), but the finished cookies were soft and delicious. I added a cinnamon glaze, which was a great finishing touch. To make the glaze, I added some cinnamon to a half recipe of the KAF simple cookie icing recipe.
  • 12/05/2011
  • carolboettler636 from KAF Community
  • I'm an experienced baker and this is the worst cookie I ever made! I didn't think I did anything wrong in preparing the dough, but I must have, as the cookie has such good reviews. The dough was easy to work with (we did cut out cookies), but the cookies had little flavor and were very hard. Couldn't even soften them by dunking in hot coffee.
    Sorry to hear of the difficulty. There could be a number of causes for the final texture. Please give our bakers a call on the hotline if you need assistance with this one, 800-827-6836. Frank @ KAF.
  • star rating 07/02/2010
  • Heather from Oldsmar
  • I made these at Christmas time and my son, husband and I LOVED them. They were slightly chewy, but had snap. They were very tasty. I loved the cinnamon. I plan on making them for every holiday from now on. I plan on making them tomorrow for the Fourth of July!
  • star rating 02/11/2010
  • Trisha from NJ
  • These cookies were fun. I would have liked more guidance on the rolling out part--how thick the cookies should be, for example. I found that rolling between sheets of parchment worked best, as the dough stuck to my roul-pat rolling mat. I must have made the cookies too thick since I came nowhere near making 6 dozen.
  • star rating 01/26/2010
  • jenny from ohio
  • I love these cookies! They are so good, and have just the right spice. I have made them over and over. I think that the dough is one of the easiest to work with. Don't let the oats scare you away, they roll out so easy!
  • star rating 01/07/2010
  • Mrs. C from Chicago
  • This is a wonderful recipe! I just made it with my daughters (4 & 7yrs) for the first time. I always sneak in whole grains when I'm baking but never thought of baking sugar cookies with whole wheat & oats! The cookies taste great - love the texture (crispy outside and chewy inside) and the flavor (good amout of spices & vanilla and real butter!). The only thing I might change the next time is the rolled oats - they remain "as is" after baking and it's also hard to cut out the dough with them in the dough - so I may try the quick oats (or whole oat flour) instead. But overall this is a great recipe, a keeper in my favorite recipes collection!
  • star rating 12/14/2009
  • from
  • I didn't add the ginger and only half the cinnamon called for in the recipe and the cookies were still really tasty! We made Chanukkah cookies and decorated them with melted chocolate and colored sprinkles. Everyone loved them. I couldn't keep my kids out of the kitchen - they kept asking for more! Never making sugar cookies again.
  • star rating 11/09/2009
  • StaffyMom from Haymarket, VA
  • I used all King Arthur Organic White Whole Wheat Flour in this recipe and they turned out great! We made cut out Halloween Cookies with this recipe and they were delicious!
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