Katie's Cookies

Katie and I met in grade 8 and have been friends ever since

Eight years after our first meeting, Katie and I are still pals. Though we have both (mostly) grown out of our Harry Potter phases, we’ve found other common ground over the years - particularly food. Katie is not a vegetarian, but she avoids red meat and is always down for a vegan meal.

When Canada went into lockdown in March 2020, Katie (with lots of free time on her hands) decided to experiment with baking. She wanted to figure out what it took to make the perfect cookie. Should she use baking soda or baking powder? Brown sugar or white sugar? Butter or margarine? After a few weeks of Googling and baking, Katie finally found the combination of ingredients to make the perfect oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. Here it is:

Ingredients

• ½ cup plus 3 tbs. unsalted butter

• 1 ice cube

• ½ cup all-purpose flour

• ¼ cup whole wheat flour

• ½ tsp. kosher salt

• ½ tsp. baking soda

• ½ cup plus 2 tbs. sugar

• 1 egg

• ¼ cup brown sugar

• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

• 1 cup plus ¼ cup oats

• 3 oz. roughly chopped chocolate (chocolate chips are fine but you won’t get gooey puddles of chocolate – which is kind of the best part)

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

• Brown the butter (melt butter on the stovetop on medium heat until it starts to brown - this is usually just past boiling). When it gets nice and brown and starts to smell great, pour it into a bowl and drop in one ice cube.

  • The ice will help cool the butter and replace the moisture lost in the browning process. Stir the ice around and let it melt in while you mix the other ingredients.

• In a large bowl, whisk together flours, salt, and baking soda. Katie measures her flour by fluffing it around with a butter knife, scooping the measuring cup right into the flour bag, and levelling off the top. There is much debate in the flour-measuring community, but this way is the least messy and therefore how it’s done for these cookies.

• Beat the granulated sugar and egg with an electric mixer for about 1 minute, until the mixture thickens and becomes slightly paler. Add the vanilla, brown sugar, and butter and beat until they’re combined.

• Fold in the dry ingredients with a spatula. When they’re almost incorporated, add the oats. When the oats are almost incorporated, add the chocolate (scrape it in right off the cutting board so you don’t miss the itty-bitty flakes of chocolate on there).

• The mixture will be fairly liquid. Cover and refrigerate for the length of one Zoom meeting, or until it has the texture of classic cookie dough.

• Plop the chunks directly onto a very well-greased cookie sheet. Make sure cookies are on a bare, naked sheet pan (no Silpat) or tinfoil, if you really don’t want to do dishes. Parchment and Silpat won’t give you those caramelized, crispy edges like aluminum will.

• Bake for 7-9 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through.

• The centers may not be done when you pull them out, and that’s okay; let them cool completely (or as long as you can wait) on the pan.

What’s the most important part of a good cookie?

Katie says the most important part of a great chocolate chip cookie is browning the butter. Don’t forget to brown the butter!