Last updated on November 30th, 2022.
These Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies are a whole new oatmeal cookie experience! Instead of a chewy cookie loaded with raisins, these cookies are thin, crispy, and exploding with butterscotch flavor.
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This recipe is adapted from one of my all-time favorite cookie book called Cookie Love by Mindy Segal. I looked at the crisp cookies in the image, read “Butterscotch” in the recipe, and was sold.
This cookie is a grown-up, sophisticated version of the good old oatmeal cookies. To begin with, it is super thin and crispy. Then it has this beautiful smoky flavor from all the molasses from the sugar and butterscotch chips. But my favorite part is that it is a sweet and salty kind of cookie, sooo addictive!
What Ingredients Are In This Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies Recipe:
- Old Fashion Oats
- Cake flour
- AP flour
- Unsalted butter
- 3 types of sugar: regular white sugar, light brown sugar, and dark brown sugar.
- Vanilla extract
- Egg
- Baking Soda
- Kosher salt, (or any salt you use for cooking) to bring out the flavor.
- Sea salt flakes upgrade the cookies to a “sweet and salty” category.
- Butterscotch Chips.
How to bake these cookies:
The very first thing we will need to do is to toast the oatmeal in the oven for about 5 minutes. Once cooled, we will ground 2 TBS in a spice grinder or a food processor.
Why Toasting The Oatmeal?
Ok, so this is not my recipe, and Mindy Segal, the creator of it did not specify. However, I feel comfortable guessing that since she wanted to create a crispy cookie, toasting the oatmeal was a way of firstly adding some crispness to the ingredient and secondly preventing the oatmeal from soaking up any moist coming from the other ingredients and, as a result, becoming chewy.
The rest of the process is pretty much straightforward, like most cookies we bake:
In a separate bowl, mix dry ingredients. Beat sugar(s) and butter, add egg+vanilla, and lastly mix in the dry ingredients.
The next step is scooping the dough and baking. Here are some super important notes:
- The dough does not require any cooling time and is best when baked right away. Cooling the dough will harden the butter, and it may not spread as much.
- The cookies spread A LOT! remember that there is baking soda in the recipe and a relatively large amount of soft butter. So leave 2″-3″ space between each cookie (I only baked four at a time).
- The cookies will not spread into a very esthetic shape; if you don’t mind it much, great. But, if you do care, the trick is super simple(credit due to Erin @cloudyktchen): right out of the oven, use a large round cookie cutter to gently twirl the cookie between the sides of the cookie cutter.
Storing the cookies:
According to Mindy, the cookies are best stored at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 3 days. But I uncovered the cookies in a container to avoid the cookies from going soft. (it did dry the cookies a bit, but I did not mind it)
HAPPY BAKING!!!
Here are some more cookies recipes you might enjoy:
Also, one more thing…
Don’t forget to tag @OneSarcasticBaker on Instagram whenever you bake this recipe. I would love to see your creations!
Lastly, did you like this recipe and find inspiring? Save THIS PIN to your Baking or Cookies boards.
Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 Cup +2 TBS Old Fashion Oats (90 g / 3 oz)
- 1 Cup Unsalted butter softened (226 g / 8 oz)
- 1/2 Cup Sugar (100 g / 3.5 oz)
- 1/2 Cup Light brown sugar (100 g / 3.5 oz)
- 1/2 Cup Dark Brown Sugar (100 g / 3.5 oz)
- 1 tsp Vanilla extract
- 1 Large Egg, room temperature
- 1/2 Cup Cake flour (60 g / 2 oz)
- 1/2 Cup AP Flour (60 g / 2 oz)
- 1 1/2 tsp Baking soda
- 1 tsp Kosher salt
- 1 tsp Sea salt flakes
- 1 Cup Butterscotch chips (180 g / 6 oz)
Instructions
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Heat oven to 350F and line 3 half-sheet cookie pans with parchment paper.
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Spead the oat on one of the pans and bake for 5 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool
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In a spice grinder or a food processor, grind 2 TBS of the baked oat into a fine powder.
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In a bowl of a standing mixer, beat butter and sugars until fluffy and light in color about 4-5 minutes. Stop the mixer halfway and scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl.
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In a small bowl, beat the egg and vanilla extract together then add it to the butter mixture.
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Stop the mixer and scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl, mix for another 10 seconds.
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In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, salts, oats, and powdered oats use a fork to fully blend then add the butterscotch and toss to make sure all have been coated with flour.
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Add the flour mix to the butter mix, beat for 5 seconds turn mixer off and finish mixing using a rubber spatula.
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Using a cookies spoon (1 1/2 TBS size) scoop the cookie batter and place 4 cookies on a cookie sheet, leave 2-3" space between each cookie.
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Place pan in the middle oven rack and bake for 8 minutes. Remove from the oven tap the pan against the counter, and use a large cookie cutter to gently twirl the cookie and make it round.
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Place the pan back in the oven and bake for another 4-6 minutes.
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Remove from the oven and twirl the cookies gain with the cookie cutter. Allow cookies to cool before removing from the oven.
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Repeat with the remaining of the dough.
These look SOOOOOO good! Yummy 🙂
These are SOOOOOO Good!!!
Do you mean let them cool before removing them from the pan? Don’t leave in the oven right? Also it’s like 77 in my house….. summer so they were pretty melted dough should I chill it at all?
Hi Kristin,
Yes, I mean let cool in the pan after removing from the oven. Once out of the oven, the cookies are very soft, and moving them right away might tear the cookies, just make sure they are hard for the most part and can be safely moved to the cooling rack. For me, it was about 10 minutes after taking out of the oven.
Can the baked cookies be frozen? I’m trying to get a head start on Christmas baking.
I never tried to freeze these ones. I think they might lose some of their crispiness but will keep their flavor.
Go ahead and freeze the dough. Just let it fully come to room temperature before you preheat your oven and bake them.
Hi I can’t get butterscotch chips here. Can I change it with something else? Or how 1st o u make it?
You can use chocolate chips or white chocolate chips. You will still have the butterscotch flavors coming from the brown sugar but not as much.
We call these oatmeal scotchies in Ohio and these are my favorite!! Can’t wait to try this one!
thank you so much LouAnn!!
I just made these, and they are so good! I thought it was a lot of salt in the recipe, but it’s the perfect balance of sweet and salty. Also love the rounding technique, I can definitely use that for other cookie recipes. My boys tasted them right after they cooled down and loved them too! I like that they are crispy but you still have the chewiness from the oats. I wonder if they will stay crispy with the humidity here in Manila? Will find out tomorrow!
thank you so much Noel! so glad you liked the cookies!
Over the years, my husband has frequently reminisced about the thin, crispy, and chewy oatmeal scotchies cookies he remembered eating in his childhood, but every time I tried to make them, according to the butterscotch morsel package recipe, they were a disappointment; thick, plump, with no crisp, no chew, with no lingering buttery, salty sweetness that he dreamt about since his youth. He never complained of course, but I knew he was being polite when he ate just a few, saving the rest “for the grandkids”. Let me tell you, with this recipe, I nailed it!! Finally! He ate nearly the entire stack of huge, round, perfect cookies, caring less whether the grandchildren got a single bite! Thank you so much! He felt so special that I took the time to find the recipe for his favorite childhood treat. It is a keeper for sure and will likely be the only cookies I bake on a regular basis. They are just perfect.
Thank you so much Cindi for taking the time to write this comment, it made my week!!!!
So happy to hear your husband loved the cookies so much and that they made him feel special. He is one lucky man to have you, sounds like you have been searching for this special recipe for him for years now.
Baking is a love language for sure!
Well these are perfect cookies. Salty/sweet, crispy/chewy,
and they go great with cold milk. I didn’t round off my first batch and they really didn’t get wonky, so I just left them as-is. Didn’t matter because my kids inhaled them. So, so delicious. I’m in the middle of making my second batch and my 8 year old said, “you should make these again!” Lol.
That is amazing Steph!
I agree, these cookies are good no matter what they look like, LOL. Thank you for sharing.
These are wonderful! Used some to make ice cream sandwiches 🙂