If you’re on the hunt for a soft & chewy cookie with crisp outer edges, a hearty, oaty interior and lots of gooey chocolate, these Best-Ever Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies are for you! They are my new favorite.

Did anyone else watch The Bachelorette finale last night?

Peter, are you here? Come home to me, Peter. You may be a personal trainer, but I can personally train you to love me.

ABC, I know you’re listening.

But really, between all the Hollywood break-ups and Rachel choosing Bryan, I really don’t know what to expect anymore? Yes, I know it’s reality TV and Hollywood gossip and it rots my brain and blah blah blah. But sometimes I get lost in the moment and really want these people, be it celebrities or reality TV stars, to be truly happy and find true love, too. Isn’t that what we all want at the end of the day?

Besides Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies, of course.

These cookies are totally amazing and I am SO SHOCKED I have not shared this recipe on my blog before! I make these frequently, often swapping out the chocolate for butterscotch chips because I grew up scarfing down oatmeal scotchies like it was my job. These bad boys are versatile and the mix-ins are literally limited to your imagination.

The best part about these cookies is their amazing texture. The cookies are made with a higher oats-to-flour ratio, giving them that hearty, oaty bite and true oatmeal flavor. You know how some oatmeal cookies have like, 1/2 cup of oats in the whole batch and taste like chocolate chip cookies with a single oat baked inside? Not these!

The cookie texture is chewy, with soft middles and crisp outer edges, so everyone’s cookie preference is literally in one cookie! I also wanted to add more brown sugar than granulated sugar which gives the cookies that awesome soft and chewiness.

For flavor, these cookies are loaded with vanilla, oats, a dash of cinnamon, and chocolate chips… but also: molasses! The molasses isn’t required, but it does add a phenomenal depth to the brown sugary base of the cookies. *Instead of using molasses, you can always use dark brown sugar which is made with more molasses than light brown sugar.* For a different flavor, you can also substitute the molasses with maple syrup!

But whatever you do, make these dang cookies because they are life-changing!

Buttery, hearty oatmeal cookies with fudgy, gooey puddles of chocolate in every bite! I love these guys!

Have a super sweet day!

xo, Hayley

 

An anything-but-ordinary chocolate chip cookie meets a gooey Nutella center in these delectable Nutella-Filled Chocolate Chunk Cookies!

These cookies were a genius idea on my part (if I do say so myself).

I had a hankering for chocolate, which isn’t super frequent but happens every so often (and I always know how to squash it – with my Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe). But I also had a jar of Nutella that was approaching its final days and I knew I needed to use it somehow when… ding ding ding! The clouds parted, angels sang, and these Nutella-Filled Chocolate Chunk Cookies were born.

These start as my Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie but they have a secret surprise inside that’s bound to delight any chocolate lover. And that fudgy Nutella center? HEAVEN.

So basically you make up the dough which consists of your usual suspects: butter, brown sugar, and sugar. The higher brown sugar count makes for soft & chewy cookies, and the granulated sugar is there for those delightfully crisp outer edges. Beat those all together and add in your egg and egg yolk – the yolk alone makes for a thicker, softer cookie, FYI – and your vanilla.

Then the baking soda, cornstarch, salt, and all-purpose flour get added to the pot and mixed in. But before you add in the dry ingredients, do yourself a flavor and add in some instant espresso powder. TRUST. It enhances the chocolate flavor ten-fold and makes for such a supremely rich and decadent cookie. The cookies will not taste mocha-y or coffee-ish at all, I promise (unless you want them to, in which case, add up to a Tablespoon!).

Lastly, fold in your chocolate chunks. For these cookies, I used Guittard Super Cookie Chips which are VERY large chocolate chips – almost chunk-like. If you don’t want to use chocolate chunks, don’t – I won’t boss you around. Just use regular chocolate chips! But more chocolate > better, no?

While the dough chills (which is a must, btw), make your Nutella filling by simply dropping little teaspoons of Nutella onto a parchment-lined baking sheet and freezing it. Ta-da! Want it to be even easier? Spoon the Nutella into a zip-top bag, seal out the air and snip off a corner, and pipe little Hershey Kiss-sized swirls of Nutella onto the baking sheet. Freeze until firm, about 1-2 hours.

When it’s time to bake, just roll out a big scoop of cookie dough, place a Nutella swirl in the center, and bake as normal. Salt the bad boys when they get out of the oven – another trust me, but it is SO good. And prepare to swoon.

The almost molten-like Nutella center of these cookies is dynamite! So gooey, chocolaty and smooth with the slight crunch of the sea salt. Heaven!

Have a super sweet day!

xo, Hayley

These Oreo Pudding Cookies are a fantastic new twist on the classic chocolate chip cookie! The pudding mix inside makes the cookies super soft and chewy!

I’ve officially been in my apartment for one month now!

And y’all – I didn’t know how bad I needed this apartment, but I am so glad to be here.

Having my own space is life-changing. I love that my house stays clean when I clean it, and I love that I can design it my own way, burn my own smelly candles, watch Keeping Up with the Kardashians without a disappointed glare from my parents, and not have to share my food.

In other words, I’m still in the honeymoon stage. I’m not at the point where I’m hating anything or something’s on the fritz. And I’m going to try to stay in this honeymoon stage as looooong as possible 🙂

When I first moved in, I wanted to bake something for the neighbors in my building as a thanks for being patient while I make a ton of noise, and I figured cookies were a good way to introduce myself. The only thing was, I didn’t want to make my regular chocolate chip cookie recipe because it required chilling and I still had a lot of errands to run for things I forgot to get before moving.

It was then that I discovered a lone box of Oreo instant pudding mix and a bag of mini Oreos in a moving box and knew I could easily transform that tasty pudding into a pudding COOKIE. AKA, the easiest cookies ever… AKA, the softest cookies in the world.

If you’re wondering if you can substitute the pudding for something else in this recipe, the answer is a big fat NO. These are called pudding cookies. There are no substitutions! If you don’t want to make these, try my Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies (the link’s above!) for a more traditional chocolate chip cookie recipe.

You can however, substitute the Oreo pudding mix for regular instant vanilla pudding mix. Some stores carry the Oreo pudding all the time, and other times it’s hard to find. Regular instant vanilla pudding mix will work in a pinch if you cannot find the Oreo mix! 

This recipe is structured exactly like chocolate chip cookies but with the must-have addition of pudding mix, which gives the cookies an amazingly light and fluffy texture and makes them SUPER soft & chewy. And if they last that long in your house, they’ll stay so soft for days. Me? I had to get rid of these as soon as I made them… to very happy neighbors 🙂

Of course, the flavor is phenomenal – that sweet vanilla Oreo filling swirled throughout with big chunks of chocolaty cookies – but my favorite part about these cookies is that they’re made SUPER QUICK – no chilling required! Let’s raise a cookie and glass of milk to that!

Have a super sweet day!

xo, Hayley