Easy Caramel Oat Cookies

Share the Simple Love!

These easy Caramel Oat Cookies are everything you want in a cookie: crunchy, chewy, and deliciously sweet! The caramel flavour is deeply comforting, and the texture from the oats is heavenly! Best of all, these cookies are easy and quick to make, with no weird or expensive ingredients.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

• Cheap to make: Caramel oat cookies are a budget friendly recipe that will feed the family without blowing your grocery budget. With a few simple ingredients, you can make a large batch of cookies that will keep your kids fed for the week!
• They’re delicious: The buttery caramel flavour of these cookies will make them a huge hit with kids and adults alike.
• Super easy: This recipe requires no butter creaming, egg whipping or overnight refrigeration. Simply mix the dough, roll into balls, and bake! This is a great recipe you can let your kids help you with.

Ingredients

Flour – use all purpose flour for these cookies.

Oats – I use large jumbo oats for this recipe, as I like the texture. You could sub half of the oats for coconut if you’re in the mood. The coconut gives the cookies a delicious texture and flavour, and makes these cookies even more chewy and delicious!

Sugar – I use white castor sugar because white sugar gives a crisper cookie. For a softer, more cake-like texture, brown sugar is best. Note that you will not lose out on any caramel flavour if you use white sugar – it’s the golden syrup that brings the caramel notes, not the sugar.

Salt – I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again – baking without salt is bland! 1 teaspoon is all you need for this large batch of cookies.

Butter – the butter is one of the key ingredients for that caramel flavour. No need to cream it for these cookies – it is melted with the golden syrup and heated until it bubbles and turns caramel in colour.

Golden Syrup – 4 tablespoons is all you need to give these cookies a luscious, decadent caramel flavour.

Baking Soda + Boiling Water – dissolve the baking soda in boiling water and add it to the butter mixture. It’s so fun watching it fluff up and expand! Just be sure to have a pot that’s big enough! You do not want to overflow!

Chopped White Chocolate or dried berries. If you want to add chopped chocolate to the mixture, just be sure to refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes before adding, as the hot butter may melt the chocolate. This isn’t the worst thing that could happen, but it is nice to experience those chocolate chunks!

If you want to add dried fruit, cranberries, apricots or dried berries works really well! Just be mindful of your children, because they can spurn a cookie for the fruit content! I find that these dried fruits are relatively kid-friendly.

Method

Preheat the oven to 160 Celsius, and line 2 baking trays with baking paper. You do not want the oven to be too hot, as the butter/sugar content can burn. Low and slow is best for these cookies! If your oven runs hot, just be sure to lower the temperature accordingly.

In a large bowl, stir the flour, oats, sugar and salt together with a fork.

Melt the butter, golden syrup and vanilla essence in a pot and let it reach boiling point. It’ll turn a lovely caramel colour.

Dissolve baking soda in the boiling water (you will want to do this in a decent sized bowl, as this does fizz up). While the baking soda mixture is still fizzing, add to the melted butter and syrup.

This will fluff up, and you’ll want to immediately stir into the dry ingredients.

Stir through the chopped chocolate or dried fruit. If using chocolate, you may want to refrigerate the dough for about 30 minutes before adding, as the hot butter will melt the chips.

Form into balls, using about 1/2 a tablespoon of cookie dough per ball. You’ll probably get about 25 cookies per baking tray. Flatten with a fork or spoon.

Bake for 15 minutes, until golden.

Top Tips for The Perfect Cookie

If it’s a chewy cookie you’re wanting, look no further! Creating the perfect chewy cookie involves specific techniques and ingredients that help maintain moisture and give the cookies their desirable texture. Here are five top tips for achieving that perfect chewiness:

1. Incorporate an Egg Yolk

Egg yolks contain fat, which adds richness and moisture to the cookies, making them chewier. Add an egg yolk to your cookie recipe and enjoy the resulting chewiness!

2. Melt the Butter

This recipe uses melted butter instead of softened butter to help create a denser, chewier texture. This is because melted butter prevents too much air from being incorporated during the mixing process.

For a general cookie recipe, melt the butter and let it cool slightly before mixing it with the sugars. This will also help the sugars dissolve better, contributing to a chewy texture.

3. Chill the Dough

Chilling the dough solidifies the fat, which means the cookies will spread less and stay thicker during baking, contributing to a chewier texture. Chill the dough for at least an hour or, ideally, overnight before baking. This also allows the flavors to meld together better.

Check out my recipe for Overnight Sourdough Choc Chip Cookies to see this method in action!

4. Underbake Slightly

Cookies continue to cook on the baking sheet even after being removed from the oven. Underbaking them slightly ensures they stay soft and chewy as they cool.

Bake the cookies until the edges are just set and the centers look slightly underdone. They will firm up as they cool.

5. Add Cornstarch

Cornstarch helps to soften the protein in the flour, resulting in a more tender and chewy texture. Add 1 to 2 teaspoons of cornstarch to the dry ingredients.

This small addition can make a significant difference in the texture of your cookies, making them chewier and softer.