Up and Running Again
Hi everyone – we are finally back with a new recipe! We took a break over Christmas and New Year to spend time with each other and the rest of our family. As a result, we have not been able to post many new recipes. Thankfully, we have finally gotten things back up and running over the past week and a half. That means plenty of new recipes and blog posts in development, as well as some fun social media content! Do not hesitate to let us know if you have any recipe requests, questions, or comments. We always try to respond as quickly as we can and love it when you share feedback with us. Now, without further ado, let me introduce today’s recipe!
Today’s Recipe
Today’s recipe is one of those recipes that is clearly not Scandinavian in the authentic and cultural sense. For us, this is an inevitable part of wanting to create our own recipes on this blog; we can’t always adhere exactly to traditional Scandinavian food or there will be no space for creativity! However, because we are influenced and inspired mainly by Scandinavian cookbooks, old family recipes, and Danish food in general, nearly all of our recipes can be related to something Scandinavian. For example, today’s recipe is for orange and chocolate chip oat cookies, and these are inspired by havregrynskager. Havregrynskager are a thin and crispy cookie flavored with orange and vanilla and topped with chocolate. We wanted to make a thicker version (for those of us that like American-style chocolate chip cookies) but still incorporate all the same flavors. So, this cookie was born!
Easy to Make and Eat!
These cookies could not be any easier to make, especially if you have experience baking chocolate chip cookies. We like to brown our butter, which means heating it up on the stove so that it turns a darker color and has a delicious and deep caramelized flavor. Then, we set it aside and let it cool. Next, we add the sugar, eggs, vanilla, orange zest, and then mix in the dry ingredients. Finally, add the chocolate chips. If you want to, you can chill the cookie dough before baking, but we’ve found that to be unnecessary for this recipe. We hope the recipe instructions down below help you to create the perfect orange chocolate chip oat cookie. Enjoy!
Orange and Chocolate Chip Oat Cookies
Ingredients
- 70 (5 tbsp) grams unsalted butter
- 50 (about 1/4 cup, packed) grams dark brown sugar
- 50 (1/4 cup) grams granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- Orange zest from half to a whole orange
- 100 (about 1 cup) grams rolled oats or old fashioned oats
- 85 (about 2/3 cup) grams all purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- Pinch of salt
- 100 (about 2/3 cup) grams chocolate chips or a chopped up chocolate bar
Instructions
- Add butter to a small pot on the stove and melt over medium to low heat. Whisk constantly until the milk solids start to turn brown; turn off the stove and remove from the heat. The milk solids will continue to brown even after you remove it from the stove, so make sure to remove it from the heat earlier than you think! Set aside to cool for around 10 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350F (176C).
- Mix together the dry ingredients: oats, flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in a medium bowl.
- When the butter has cooled down, zest half of an orange to a whole orange into the butter (We like to zest the whole orange for maximum orange flavor, but it's personal preference! You can also leave this step out entirely).
- Add vanilla extract, the granulated sugar, brown sugar, and whisk well.
- Add the egg to the sugar and butter mixture and whisk well until everything is fully combined.
- Mix together the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients until there are no dry spots. It may seem a little too wet at first; if you let it sit for about a minute or two, the flour should start to hydrate and it will thicken up. The dough should hold its shape but it should not be too firm. (If it is still very runny after 5 minutes of sitting, try putting it in the fridge for 10-15 minutes).
- Optional step: chop about half of the chocolate chips into smaller pieces; we like to do this to get some variety of chocolate texture, but you don't need to do this!
- Fold in chocolate chips until evenly distributed.
- Spoon the mixture onto a baking tray lined with parchment paper. The mixture should make 12 cookies. We put six cookies on each tray and bake the trays one at a time for even baking in our oven, but you can bake two trays at once if you wish!
- Bake for 8-10 minutes until you can see the edges start to turn golden brown. Take them out of the oven – the cookies will seem underbaked, but let them set on the tray for 1-2 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
- Once cooled off slightly, enjoy with a cup of coffee or a glass of milk!
