Healthy Oatmeal Cookies with Belgian Chocolate Chips

I recently bought a big can of Quaker Oats for the sole reason that I was getting tired of bread that I’m always having for breakfast. I just pour hot milk over it, cover and top it with fresh fruits.

But now I noticed even though I have been eating it daily for the past 2 weeks, it doesn’t seem to run out. In a mission to use the oats left something other than for breakfast, I began browsing through magazines for a dessert recipe that I could easily make and be ready as my afternoon snack. I spotted the easy and simple Oatmeal Cookies recipe. The recipe turns out to be the The Ultimate Oatmeal Cookie recipe of Betty Crocker.

After reading the recipe, I found it very plain so I opened my pantry and scoured for anything good that I could zest up my cookies. The recipe calls for a cup of raisins (if desired) to be baked with the cookies. But I was never a fan of raisins so I decided to use chocolate chips instead. You can never go wrong with chocolate on cookies. Thank goodness I had some Callebaut Hard Chips left!

Betty Crocker’s recipe calls out also for brown sugar in the recipe but I decided to go with the all natural muscovado sugar instead to make my cookies a bit healthier.

Since I’m living and baking in a country that has terrible humidity, I learned a trick that got rid of my flat and ugly cookies. The trick that I learned is that after mixing the batter, let it rest first inside the refrigerator. I usually clean up a bit and prepare my trays while my batter is resting. This helps the butter solidify a bit and produces a nice texture on the cookie. To also control the spread of the cookie when baking is that after you scoop them on the tray, place back again the rest of the batter inside the refrigerator so that the butter won’t soften even before it hits the oven. I try to indent a little of my thumb on each cookie so that while it is baking; you’ll get a perfect shaped top on the cookie.

My cookies baked perfectly! I loved how the muscovado sugar and the chocolate chips gave the cookie an awesome balance of sweetness. After successfully baking a perfect batch, I christened thee… “Healthy Oatmeal Cookies with Belgian Chocolate Chips”.

Here’s my tweaked Betty Crocker recipe for you to try out. Happy Baking!

Healthy Oatmeal Cookies with Belgian Chocolate Chips
Yield: about 2 dozen cookies

1 ¼ cups packed light muscovado sugar
½ cup butter, softened
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
¼ teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1 ½ cups of quick cooking oats
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1 ¼ cups high quality chocolate such as Callebaut hard chips

Procedure:
Heat oven to 350F. Beat all ingredients except oats, flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and chocolate chips using a stand mixer on medium speed for about 30 seconds or until no lumps of butter are visible.

Then, using a spatula, stir just until blended the rest of the ingredients.

oats, flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and chocolate chips

Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 9 to 11 minutes or until light brown. Remove immediately from the cookie sheet to the wire rack.

perfect cookies

After cooling and eating a dozen, I packed the rest of the cookies and gave to a friend as a gift :)