Vanilla Bean and Oatmeal Cookie Recipe

I have never been able to make those prefect cookies. You know the ones — the ones where they are thin and a little crunchy around the edges but soft in the middle with the perfect flavor? Yeah, those. My cookies have always turned out cake-like. Moist, but thicker and and more like cake. I tried changing everything out — are my ingredients old? Am I not following directions exactly the same? To this day, I still don’t know what I did wrong.

But this cookie…this ONE cookie…I can make. exactly like how I envisioned them when I made them for Jake when he was little. Normally I wouldn’t think that vanilla bean paste and oatmeal would make the perfect cookie, but I’m telling you, these cookies ROCK. Even when I make them! They’re relatively easy for cookies made from scratch, but I can tell you they won’t last long!!!

Here’s what you’ll need:
1 cup salted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 egg (large preferable)
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp vanilla bean paste
1 2/3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cups old fashioned oats

parchment paper and large cookie sheets
electric mixer

Directions:
Preheat over the 350 degrees F. Line the cookie sheets with parchment paper for later. In a large bowl beat butter and both sugars until fluffy using electric mixer. Add egg, vanilla extract and vanilla bean paste and mix until well blended. In another bowl, combine flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, baking powder and nutmeg. Mix that with a spoon and slowly add that to the butter/sugar mixture. Add oats.

Scoop out dough and drop onto cookie sheets (I fit 12 cookies on a large cookie sheet). You want the balls to be smaller than golf balls, maybe a little less than 2 tbsp. Take some regular sugar and put it on a plate and take a measuring cup and get it damp on the bottom. Dip the bottom of the cup into the sugar and use the bottom to flatten your cookie dough ball. This will flatten it out and have a nice outside covering of sugar. Yum! You may have to dampen the bottom of your cup more than once (I used a metal measuring cup so I’m not sure if that made a difference).