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 Shauna Sever’s latest cookbook 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
Instructions
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
Equipment
Nutrition
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These are unique and amazing. Everyone who tries them loves them. I’ve had one bath fall apart on me as well….I find softened but not too softened butter works well. Also I had to make oat flour in ninja blender but the rest of the steps in ninja food processor. It made the dough evenly wet and easy to mold.
I made these cookies but the dough doesn’t seem to hold together very well.. I put the roll in the refrigerator overnight and when I went to cut them, the dough was very stiff and fell apart as I tried to cut them.. Any idea what I’m doing wrong
This happened to me too… I was thinking to add another egg yolk or more butter?
Maybe longer mixing time?
These turned absolutely delicious and perfect!!! It took a couple of tries to get the “kissing” icing technique right but eventually I got a hold of it 🙂 Thank you so much for the recipe !!
These are my favorite cookies! I’ve made them 3 times – I love the chewy texture from the oatmeal, with a bit of sweetness from the icing. And they’re SO EASY. My ONLY issue is I always forget that the egg white gets used in the icing – 3 times I’ve made myself an egg white to eat before I get to the icing. Would love if that could get mentioned in the ingredients/recipe for dummies like me.
Hi Katie! That’s a good tip, going to include this in the recipe now. Thanks for the feedback and so glad you love them! 🙂
These were so easy to make and an improvement on the store bought cookies!
I don’t have a food processor so I used my Vitamix blender to grind the oats to flour. I then used a hand mixer to mix the ingredients in a large bowl. 12 minutes in the oven was perfect.
For the icing, I used meringue powder instead of the egg white (substitute 2tsp meringue powder + 2 tbsp water).
The cookies came out perfectly and looked just like the photos! There was a lot of extra frosting so that seems like a great excuse to make a second batch of cookies haha
Hey I don’t have a food processor is their anyway that I can do this without it. I have a blender and a nutribullet but idk if this would work. So is their any way that I can?
hmmm i feel like if you could get it to a oatmeal flour type of consistency you’ll be ok. perhaps you could mix in the rest by hand? not sure. never tried it!
These are delicious! Is there a special way to roll it or cut it to ensure you get the crackly tops? Only 1 or 2 of mine did, the rest are very smooth. I think I will dip a little side of the cookies in the icing instead.
Can you freeze the logs and then thaw and bake?
I don’t see why not, though I haven’t tried it so I can’t say for certain!
Can you freeze the dough?
Gaaaa. It always gets me when there’s a raw egg white in icing…. I’ve seen recipes for these cookies before and they always look awesome, but I just don’t want to give people a cookie with a raw egg white.
Use meringue powder instead but royal icing often is made with raw egg whites. Don’t know where you’re located but in the US eggs are pasteurized to reduce the risk of salmonella when consuming them raw or a touch undercooked.
I love this recipe! I’ve made it twice for friends now and they’ve been a hit. I used coarse sea salt in the batter and I love the extra little salty hint every few bites. The second time I made it, I chilled the cookies overnight so they were very smooth when I sliced them and I didn’t get the crackly top. Still very delicious though!
One question – my icing didn’t turn out as bright white as your photos. Any tips?
hmm i’m not sure. i did use organic eggs so maybe the whites are whiter? have no idea why that would make a difference lol.
These look really yummy (and easy)! I haven’t thought about iced oatmeal cookies in a long time. They might be a nice addition to our work cookie exchange. If I were to make these over The cookie exchange is on Thursday of next week so I’ll have to do all the baking after I get home on Tues and/or Wed. I assume yes, but don’t want the dough to get too “chilled” if that’s a thing?? I am also glad you gave the tip not to dunk the whole cookie in icing because that’s definitely what I’d be prone to doing haha…the more frosting, the better!
I did that at first, too! Haha. You can definitely make the dough the day before and stick it in the fridge and bake them off whenever you like. I don’t believe there’s a thing of “the dough being too cold.” They should work out just fine! Hope you love them! 🙂
I would love to make these cookies but I don’t have a food processor. Is there another way to grind the oats and mix in the butter and egg? I have blenders (stick and jar types) and an electric mixer. Any chance one of those would work? Oh, and I do have a mini food processor (more like a chopper) that holds about 1-1/2 cups. Is it worth trying to wing it without a big processor? Gorgeous photography, by the way.
I use a mini food processor, and you only need a couple pulses for the oat flour