These crispy Iced Oatmeal Cookies are slice and bake cookies. They’re touched with a hint of nutmeg, cinnamon, and then dipped in a glaze that gives it that signature craggily top!
December is the month of cookies, cookies and more cookies! These iced oatmeal cookies are MY JAM. I usually favor soft cookies but these have the best of both worlds: a delightful little snap coupled with so much flavor and a soft-ish middle.
This recipe comes from my friend Midwest Made. If you know anything about Shauna, you know that she is a fierce recipe writer and super successful cookbook author. Her recipes not only work but they’re amazing. Every single one I’ve tried has been like DANG OK. Including these cookies. They are so delicious.
Midwest Baking
I’m going to be honest, I know VERY little about midwest cooking. Literally nothing. Haha. But I have eaten these cookies once before—in store-bought form. I’m pretty sure it was a bag of Mother’s Iced Oatmeal Cookies.
I honestly don’t really remember them but I’m pretty sure it was in college when I was super high and crushed a whole bag. Again, remember very little about them, except I remember looking down and being like whoa they’re all gone!
So I guess I liked them. And after making this, I stand by my opinions. These cookies are the type that I can eat by the dozen. I love me some chocolate chip cookies, I usually can only eat one or two, but not these. They’re truly glorious.
The History of Oatmeal Cookies
Baking with old fashioned oats was at first a health-driven idea. Quaker Oats first published an old fashioned oat recipe on its packaging in the late 1800s, encouraging its customers to bake with oats. It began then…and then obviously evolved into what we have today which is a myriad of different types of oatmeal cookies, including this one!
A lot of people might be reminded of Mother’s Iced Oatmeal Cookies or Archway’s Iced Oatmeal Cookies. I’m going to be honest, I don’t really have those nostalgic memories. But if you do, a lot of people have said these are very similar!
How to Make Iced Oatmeal Cookies
These cookies are known as “slice and bake.” Meaning, you roll the dough into a log, chill it and then when it’s nice and cold, you slice the cookies into 2-inch pieces and bake them up! Here’s how to make them:
- Make the oat flour. I would say that this isn’t EXACTLY like oat flour. It’s not as fine as store-bought oat flour and you don’t want it that fine. The best thing about the cookies is the texture and that comes from the oat flour being ground in the food processor (as opposed to a milling machine).
- Add all of the ingredients to the food processor. This recipe is SO easy because after you make the oat flour, you add the rest of the dough ingredients to the food processor (minus the egg yolk), process and then lastly, the egg yolk. Super simple and quick.
- Roll the dough. After the dough has been mixed together with no dry pockets, you add the dough to a sheet of plastic wrap. You form it into a log, wrap it and up and chill the dough for 3 hours.
- Slice the dough. When the dough is nice and chilled, you remove it from the fridge and cut it into 1/2-inch slices. Transfer the slices of cookies to a baking sheet.
- Bake. Transfer the cookies to a preheated oven and bake them for about 12 minutes. Cool them completely on a wire rack—this is when crispiness begins to form!
- Make the icing. The icing is super simple to whip together.
- Kiss the cookies with the icing. I learned this the hard way, but you don’t want to dip the cookies as in a full dunk into the icing. You want them to just kiss the icing. As a result, as it sets, you’ll see that craggily top!
After the icing sets, they’re ready to eat.
I’m also making these in a step-by-step on IG Stories, if you’re curious! I always find that a visual step-by-step helps everyone (including me).
Here’s another link to Shauna’s book Midwest Made!
Iced Oatmeal Cookies Recipe
Ingredients
Dough:
- 1 1/2 cups / 150g old-fashioned rolled oats
- 3/4 cup / 170g firmly packed dark or light brown sugar
- 1/2 cup / 64g all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
- 1/2 cup / 113g cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
- 1 large egg yolk
Icing:
- 1 large egg white
- 1 1/4 cups / 150 g powdered sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
Directions
To Make the Dough:
- In the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel S blade, grind the oats to a flour. Add the brown sugar, flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg and process briefly to blend. Toss in the butter cubes and process until the butter is well incorporated and the dough begins to clump and pull off the sides of the bowl. Add the egg yolk and pulse until the dough comes together with no dry pockets.
- Line a work surface with a large sheet of plastic wrap. Turn out the dough onto the plastic wrap and form it into a log about 10-inches/25cm long and 1 1/2 inches/3.8 in diameter. Wrap the dough tightly. Chill the dough until firm, about 3 hours in the refrigerator.
- Position a rack to the center of the oven and preheat it to 350 degrees F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Use a thin, sharp knife to slice the dough log into 2 dozen rounds, each just shy of 1/2-inch/1.25 cm thick. Transfer the rounds, evenly spaced about 2 inches/5cm apart, to the prepared baking sheets. Bake until golden and firm on the edges with a bit of give in the centers, about 12 minutes. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely—they will crisp all the way through as they cool.
To Make the Icing:
- In a small bowl, combine the egg white, powdered sugar, vanilla and salt. Mix with a handheld electric mixer until smooth and thick. (Alternatively, you could also do this in a stand-up mixer or in a medium bowl by hand.) Blend in 1 teaspoon of water until smooth. To ice the cookies, working 1 at a time, kiss the tops lightly to the surface of the icing—you want to just show the cookie to the icing, not submerge it.
- Let the excess icing drip off for a moment, and then set the iced cookie on a wire rack. If the icing begins to firm while you’re dipping, loosen it with a few drops of water. Allow the icing to dry completely before serving, about 1 hour.
- Store in an airtight container for up to 1 week.
Notes
Looking for more cookie recipes? Here are some favorites:
