Cinnamon Oatmeal Stars

I have King Arthur Flour "Liked" on Facebook because I love their recipes. I like their flour too. I seem to have good luck with it when baking in high altitude. Anyway, they posted this recipe on Facebook last year sometime and I bookmarked it and finally made them. But adapted it a little bit.

I didn't make Cardamom Butter Cut-Out Cookies this year. And I like cardamom so when I saw this recipe and the ingredients I felt cardamom would be a good add to it. And so I did.



Cinnamon Oatmeal Stars
adapted from King Arthur Flour's Chewy Oatmeal Decorating Cookies

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
3/4 cup packed light or dark brown sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom (King Arthur's recipe has ginger)
2 cups Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour, traditional or white wheat
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
cinnamon sugar

To prepare the dough: In a medium-sized bowl, beat together the butter and sugar, then add the egg, vanilla, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, and cardamom, beating until smooth. Beat in the flours and oats. The original recipe warns that the mixture may look dry at first but then it will come together - I didn't have that problem. It was pretty moist all the way through the mixing process. Divide the dough into two pieces, wrap each piece in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease (or line with parchment) two baking sheets.

To shape the cookies: Working with one piece of dough at a time, roll it into a circle about 14" in diameter. Use your favorite cutters to cut out cookies, re-rolling and cutting the scraps. Place the cutout cookies on lightly greased or parchment-lined cookie sheets; set them fairly close together, as they don’t spread.

To bake the cookies: Bake the cookies for about 9 to 10 minutes: the shorter amount of time will make softer cookies, the longer amount of time, crisper cookies. Remove the cookies from the oven, sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar and transfer to a rack to cool. Repeat with the remaining dough.

Yield: 6 1/2 dozen 2 ½" cookies.

NOTES:
* I wish I had ran the oats through my food processor just a little bit. Maybe just 2 pulses. Because in cutting the cookies out through the oats was difficult at times. And so the stars didn't have clean edges. I think having the oats in smaller pieces would have helped that. But you don't want oat flour you want oats so that is why I say only 2 pulses. Maybe only one. I just feel it would be easier if they were in a little smaller pieces. But they still turned out good and I even if I don't have time or the food processor thing doesn't work - then I would still make these cookies as they are very good.

* These cookies are great for high altitude cooking. The oats and whole wheat flour helps hold them together. They don't spread at all.

* King Arthur calls them chewy but they weren't chewy at all. It might be due to altitude. Not sure. But to Michael and I the cookies tasted light and flaky - almost like a pie crust but more sweet.

* They weren't good to ship at least not loosely in a container. They broke. We shipped some to Michael's parents and I think I included some in a package to my sister and brother-in-law. But Michael's parents told use that the stars didn't make it. As I said above they were light and flaky. Although they weren't crumbly. I just feel it was to being jostled so much in shipping they broke. But they aren't fragile cookies just in normal conditions (such as sitting in a cookie jar and being eaten right away because they are so good).


These cookies were really good. I loved that they had whole wheat and oats in them. And I will be making them again. And maybe trying different spices in them and possibly drizzling them with some dark chocolate.