Yes, my dear sweet tooth, I must be crazy. Cookies with no chocolate chips: something against the common sense! But having a dark brown sugar in my cupboard demanding to play the role of an undisputed Primadonna in my recipes, I could not make it otherwise. A beautifully rich dark sugar made out of natural molasses of the sugar cane, can’t make room for the rival opulence of chocolate. You can’t fault that.
While tasting the last batch of aromatic and flavorful cookies I look at the pics I took of them. My photos do not quite do my cookies justice. Since I prepared them without the aim of an electric mixer but with the only strength of my arms to handle the whisk and mix-mix-mix, I did not have enough energy left to take better pictures. Pick the right ray of light, change the ISO, shoot, on no wrong aperture, shoot again, background sucks, change it, shoot, oh no clouds arrived, it’s all too dark now, change the exposure, shoot…. Enough!!! No, nada, nisba. This time I’ve just pressed a button handling the camera with hands dirty of sticky cookie dough.
Anyway, you’ve got the point: these little treats are good despite these pics taken with an hair-raising high ISO value (OK, I’m not going to be featured on FoodGawker). Oats create no contrast in flavor and I may almost forget they are one of the main ingredients. Butter was used sparingly. Sugar, yes, is an important ingredient here. I could not skip it. If you follow my blog you may already know that I tend to experiment with sugar-free or at least no-sugar added recipes. Sometimes with great results, like in the case of orange and rum mini cakes. However, last time I baked with no sugar at all, I had to throw a beautiful strawberry and chocolate cake because it was tasting like I don’t know what (how does a tire taste like?). I understood that we need a bit of sugar (at least unrefined) once in a while to bake good stuff.
Oat and Unrefined Molasses Sugar cookies
- 3/4 cup unsalted butter
- 3/4 cup dark brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup plain flour
- 1 cup rolled jumbo oats
- 1 tbsp cornstarch
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- In a bowl heat the butter in microwave for about 10 seconds so to make it softer and easy to cream. In a larger bowl mix the butter with sugar until fluffy and light in color. Mix in egg and vanilla.
- Mix in flour, baking soda, cornstarch and salt. Stir in oats Chill for at least 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).
- Drop 1 tbsp balls of dough onto cookie sheet and press down with your fingers in order to flatten and shape the cookies. Repeat with the rest of the dough.
- Bake for just 10 minutes, until golden brown.
- Remove and let cool for 5-10 minutes before serving.Store for up to 7 days in an airtight container.