I was originally planning to share a lemon bundt cake with you guys today, but the recipe was almost a total flop. Still edible, but not a recipe I’d ever use again, and definitely not pretty enough to entice anyone into making it anyway. Instead, please enjoy this cookie recipe, and hopefully in a week or two there actually will be a lemon bundt cake featured here.

Four years ago my mom emailed me a recipe entitled “Best Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies”. I labeled it under “recipes” in my Gmail account, and then promptly forgot about it.

Until now.

When M is in town, I try to bake cookies every week so he can have them in his lunches. I do occasionally miss a week (at which time he makes his own, because it usually means I made a pie instead), but most of the time Sunday is cookie day. Peanut butter chocolate chip are a household staple, as well as oatmeal raisin chocolate chip, or oatmeal Craisin white chocolate chip. (One of these days each of these recipes will make an appearance on here.) One week however, I wasn’t feeling like the regulars and when I asked M for suggestions all he came back with was “something with chocolate chips.”

So helpful.

I perused my recipes folder and rediscovered the email with this one. Since I had everything on hand, I decided to give it a shot. This was a wise decision as it is easily the best oatmeal chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever made, and probably one of the best cookie recipes, period. Unlike your average oatmeal cookie, this one calls for the oatmeal to be finely ground in a blender before adding it to the dough, resulting in the wholesome flavor of oatmeal without the usual telltale texture. Super soft even a week later (in case you, too, forget one in your backpack) and a bit less sweet than most chocolate chip cookies, this recipe has definitely become a new staple at our house. I even made it two weeks in a row, which is a pretty rare event around here.

Using both white and brown sugar gives the soft texture and very slight caramel flavor generally found in peanut butter cookies, while the oatmeal lends a wholesome flavor that almost makes you feel like you’re eating something healthy. (Pro tip: you aren’t.) The original recipe calls for chocolate chips and a chopped up chocolate bar, but I decided to use the bag of Nestle chocolate chunks I had in the cupboard. (I have a slight addiction to buying random bags of baking chips. Shh.) Due to their size, I opted to forgo my usual one tablespoon cookie scoop in favor of the three tablespoon size I generally reserve for cupcakes. This was my second wise decision of the day, as we ended up with three dozen bakery-sized cookies perfectly saturated with chocolate chunks.

Pour a glass of milk and have a couple. You can thank me later.

Soft and Chewy Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Makes 3 dozen large cookies

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups (310 g) flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

1 cup unsalted butter, room temp
1 cup (200g) white sugar
1 cup (150g) brown sugar, lightly packed

2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

2 1/2 cups (250g) oatmeal, finely ground

~12 oz (360g) package chocolate chunks

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Whisk together flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Set aside.
3. Cream butter and both sugars until fluffy.
4. Add eggs and vanilla and beat until just combined.
5. Add flour mixture and beat until just combined.
6. Push dough to the bottom of the bowl, add ground oatmeal, and stir until just combined.¹
7. Push dough from the beaters, add the chocolate chunks, and stir until chocolate is well distributed.2
8. Use a 3 Tbsp cookie scoop and place dough balls at least 2″ apart on a cookie sheet.³
9. Bake for 12-14 minutes, let cool on the pan for a few minutes, then remove cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.
10. Store in an airtight container; cookies stay soft for at least a week (at which point ours were all eaten.)

Notes

¹ If you don’t push the dough off the paddle, it likely won’t mix properly.
² It may be necessary to mix the last bit of oatmeal into the dough by hand.
³ I couldn’t fit more than 9 cookies on a sheet at one time.