TWD: Chocolate Oatmeal Drops

I'm going to make a wild guess. Go out on a limb. Conjecture, as it were. None of you are at all interested in hearing about how climate change could affect water resources globally, regionally, or locally. True? This is more than a little unfortunate, as the impacts on freshwater and its management are basically what my weekend was filled with. Well, that and other things related to climate change like radiative forcing of aerosols, the ice albedo feedback, and greenhouse gas emissions. Oh yes, and a little on carbon sequestration in the deep ocean and how it affects atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Yep, I can see your eyes glazing over, your head tilting into a WTF position, and you scrolling hurriedly through those last few sentences. My sincerest apologies. I mean, there's not much I can do about it - it turns out that when your life consists of a very narrow range of subjects, there's not much else going on in the headspace.

That's not to say these topics aren't relevant to cookies. Especially to these cookies. I mean, I did bake them while reading about said topics. And they were brought into the classes in question so that we could nibble on cookies while talking about those topics. I have to think they added a little something to the discussion, right? How could they not, with their brownie-like texture plus the added chew of oatmeal throughout? I had one break as I was transferring them to the cooling rack, so I passed it on to J, whose immediate reaction was to threaten to hoard them. Given his general pickiness about what he wants to hoard (generally, brownies, oatmeal raisin cookies, and snickerdoodles get top billing), that's a very good sign.

 
A couple notes re: the recipe though. I know a few people had issues with their cookies tasting greasy or spreading. I did not, but I think a couple things went in my favor there - using a whisk to incorporate the melted butter allowed everything to homogenize a bit better, as did waiting to do so until the chocolate had cooled sufficiently. Letting the dough cool until it was a tad bit stiffer also kept my cookies from spreading - one of the few times where I actually had patience in the kitchen! And it paid off! (Think I'll learn my lesson here? Yeah, probably not.) This last note is less of a way to avoid issues and more of a personal preference - I used kosher salt, and a good bit more than was called for in the recipe. J's comment was that he liked them better with that assertive background saltiness, since it punched up the chocolate flavor quite a bit.

Last Week: Bourbon Bread Pudding
Next Week: Toasted Almond Scones