Soft Oatmeal Cookies

Today was my grocery shopping day. Once a week I spend a couple of hours at the store without my husband and children grocery shopping. While it might sound boring to some, I cherish the small amount of me time. Since I stay at home with my youngest all day I have very little time to myself. So on Saturdays I walk down every aisle of the grocery store and slowly look at everything in the whole store. It is also a great way to save money. Since I'm not in a hurry I don't buy unnecessary items and I have the time to spot great deal like today when my grocery store paid me 5 dollars thanks to clearance finds and coupons. I try to remember my peace of mind during this time when my four-year-old has temper tantrums or draws all over the walls the rest of the week. Baking from scratch is another great way to save money. I try to bake as many things from scratch as I can, especially since I have to eat gluten free now. Last week I tried a new recipe for Oatmeal Cookies from Allrecipes.com.

This recipe has 10 ingredients. It takes 2 hours of total time (including chilling), 15 minutes of which is active and makes 2 dozen cookies. I did make a few modifications to the recipe. First since I eat gluten free I used gluten free all-purpose flour. There are a number of brands of gluten free flour, my favorite uses coconut flour as a base or I make my own using a blend of sorghum and brown rice flours. Make sure to let the dough chill. I have made this recipe a number of times and experimented with how long to let the dough chill. Without the chilling time the cookies are a mess to roll into balls and place on the cookie sheet. I have also tried making them flat with a fork like the recipe states or skipping this step. If you want soft cookies don't flatten them with a fork. If you want crunchy oatmeal cookies than you have to flatten them. Plus the sugar gives them a nice added sweet crunchiness. Finally make sure to let the cookies cool before moving them from the baking sheet. They have a tendency to fall apart if they are moved while still warm. My baking time was also slightly longer than the recipe, approximately 3-5 minutes. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

These cookies were very popular in my house. My boys will eat just about any type of cookie and this recipe as no exception. The cookies came out thin and crunchy, which is the type of oatmeal cookie that I prefer. My husband thought that they were very good, especially since they were gluten free. This recipe would also be delicious with chocolate chips, I would go with bittersweet since the cookies are already so sweet and reduce the amount of total sugar by 1/2 cup.

For the recipe go to Soft Oatmeal Cookies.