TBB - Luxury Oatmeal Cookies

This week, Rose's Alpha Bakers are baking oatmeal cookies. Not just any oatmeal cookies. Luxury Oatmeal Cookies. What could be luxurious about a plain ol' oatmeal cookie, you ask? These are made with homemade granola.

To be honest, I already have a favorite oatmeal cookie recipe that I've tweaked to "perfection" and have been using for many years. Rose's recipe has several steps, including making your own granola which is one of the ingredients in this cookie recipe. Since the oatmeal cookie is hubby's favorite cookie, I wanted to give it a try.

After I tasted the granola, I knew my efforts weren't in vain. Even if the cookie is a dud, I'd still be extremely happy (luckily the cookie wasn't).

Chock full of raisins, toasty almonds, and butterscotch chips! And oats of course :)

Here are my step-by-step pictures:

Apple Syrup is made from apple cider and sugar. Picked this up at a gas station in Wisconsin.

Granola is ready for the oven

Granola is ready to be added to the cookie dough

The rest of the granola after an extra 30 min stay in the oven is now nice and crunchy

Cookie dough is ready to go into the fridge (it stayed there for 48 hours because I didn't have time to bake on Sunday)

These 1 oz dough balls are ready for the oven

After a 10 min stay in the oven (5 min, rotate, 5 min). See how they're not nice and round? I have a trick for that. Use a metal spatula while the cookies are still hot (and vulnerable) and gently push in the crooked edges until they're nice and round.

What do you think? Same cookies, much rounder.

Baked one dozen cookies

The rest of the dough I shaped into 1 oz balls and put them in the freezer. Once frozen, I'll transfer them to a ziplock bag.

The smell is amazing and so is the texture. Crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside.

Toasty oats, almonds, raisins, and butterscotch chips. Bon Appetit!

I was multi-tasking when making the granola for these cookies. My BFF's daughter turned 9 today so I made her a little birthday cake (it was a big hit).

Four layer chocolate cake with chocolate whipped cream filling

Chocolate glaze on top to finish it off :)

Final thoughts/tips:

• Hubby loved this cookie. His only comment was that it has a little too much butter (which I knew he'd comment on). He still gave it a 9 out of 10 rating (score!). When asked which oatmeal cookie he liked best, he said, he'd need the other cookie to do a side-by-side taste test. Smart man!
• I loved this cookie. I ate mine slightly warm. It was still crunchy on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside. The combination of the add-ins in my cookie had me worried initially. But somehow the butterscotch chips, raisins, and almonds just played really nicely together.
• The granola was awesome! I shared it with my BFF who wanted the recipe for it right away.
• Would I make these cookies again? Probably, but only if I'm not in a hurry. The granola was so easy to make that I will definitely make that again.
• My changes:
• Granola:
• Used whole Moroccan almonds to replace the walnuts. 
• Used Apple Syrup (made from apple cider and sugar) for the maple syrup. I think honey would go really well too. 
• Used 1 Tablespoon of ground cinnamon instead of 1 tsp. Forgot to add the brown sugar at first, and then added it after I took it out of the oven.
• I took out the granola that I needed for half the cookie recipe, and then returned it to the oven for 30 min at 300 F to make it crunchy.
• Next time:
• Reduce the salt a bit (found it a tiny bit too salty). 
• Add flax seeds.
• Use olive oil instead of canola oil.
• Cookie: 
• Replaced the amount of chocolate chips with butterscotch chips.
• Reduced the cookie size but shaping the dough into 1 oz balls. Baked for 5 min, rotated the cookie sheets, and baked for another 5 min.
• Don't forget to check out the other Alpha Bakers here.