I’ve already shared quite a few oatmeal cookies: my soft, bakery-style oatmeal cookies, an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe, and my popular no-bake cookies! Today I’m sharing a fun, old-fashioned, frosted favorite!
Hello and Happy Monday! I’m back in cold and snowy Pennsylvania after spending the weekend in 75 degree Florida (and Disney!) with my family. Returning to icy weather isn’t exactly my idea of the best way to start off the week, but at least we have Iced Oatmeal Cookies, right? With firm exteriors and chewy centers, these cookies aren’t as soft as some of my other favorites, but they were specifically designed to have this firm but chewy texture. These are fun and beautiful cookies (can cookies be beautiful? these are to me), so let’s get started!
Tips for Making Iced Oatmeal Cookies
Start with melted butter, but let it cool!
Using melted butter is one of my favorite techniques when making cookie recipes. It imparts a chewy texture and excellent flavor. However, let the butter cool until it’s near room temperature before adding your sugars. It should still be liquid (not re-solidified) but if the butter is hot it will melt your sugars, leaving you with a greasy and unusable dough.
You will need a food processor for this recipe
To give these iced oatmeal cookies that dense, chewy texture, I found the best method was to briefly pulse the oats in a food processor. You don’t get the same results using instant oats, so I do recommend starting with old fashioned oats and pulsing them. This is the food processor I use and love (affiliate).
Your dough will be crumbly once you add your oats
This is OK and the dough is supposed to be this way! Because of this, though, you will want to use your hands to work the dough together and roll it into smooth balls (for neat, uniform-looking iced oatmeal cookies). It’s also very important (with all cookies, but especially these) that you do not over-measure your flour or you’ll end up with dry, crumbly cookies. I’ve included notes in the recipe below on how to properly measure your flour: stir, spoon, and level, never scoop your flour!
Oatmeal Cookie Icing
The frosting that I used for these iced oatmeal cookies is essentially the same as my sugar cookie icing. I absolutely love this recipe because 1) it’s not royal icing, which I don’t care for, 2) it’s simple to make –essentially foolproof, and 3) it dries shiny and hard on your cookies. It does use light corn syrup (this is what helps give these cookies their beautiful shiny finish), but I’ve learned that not everyone keeps corn syrup on hand or loves using it (which I thinks comes from a misunderstanding… corn syrup is not the same as high fructose corn syrup). I tested the icing without and found that it will work if you leave out the syrup. However, you won’t get the signature shine and the icing doesn’t seem to set up quite as firmly as it does with the corn syrup. When made as directed, iced oatmeal cookies will take several hours at room temperature for the frosting to set completely and for the cookies to be stackable without messing up the icing.
Enjoy!
Other Recipes You Might Like:
Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies Oatmeal Cookie Bars Oatmeal Muffins White Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies
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