Fudge oatmeal cookies

I think most of us would agree that oatmeal cookies are a classic.  We can never have too many oatmeal cookies, right?  Every so often (it's really more like very often), I crave one and recently, I was mesmerized by these oatmeal cookies I saw over at The Kitchn - they're soft, chewy oatmeal cookies, studded in the center with a dollop of chocolate fudge!  The very word, fudge, makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.  And since you really shouldn't have oatmeal cookies without chocolate in some form, here was a great new way to combine the two.  I had to make some of these cookies!

While I would have personally preferred it, I omitted the walnuts from the recipe because I made this batch to take along to my son's final soccer game of the season.  Aside from potential nut allergies, I think it's generally a better bet to remove nuts from the equation when serving a group of kids.  They either love it or they hate it, and many of them tend to fall into the latter group.

These cookies are very easy to make - even simpler when you skip the nuts like I did.  The oatmeal cookie base is a familiar one, which you can easily prepare a couple of days in advance and store in the fridge.  The fudge filling - simply condensed milk and chocolate chips - comes together in minutes on the stove-top.

Once baked, the cookies spread around the little pool of fudge.  The fudge itself sets and firms up so that you can easily store, stack, and transport these cookies.  The texture of the fudge filling is wonderfully chewy.  

I think these oatmeal fudge cookies are familiar yet just jazzed-up enough to appear on any holiday cookie platter.  I'm pretty confident they'd be popular at any bake sale, too.

Happily, my batch of cookies were very well received by the kids, my little one included.  The boys were undoubtedly hungry after their game but you know that kids are brutally honest so I trust that their enthusiasm was genuine.  There's nothing like seeing a group of people devour and enjoy something you made so I was the true beneficiary of these cookies.  

This recipe's a keeper.  And for all you peanut butter devotees out there, there's a peanut butter version too!  


The oatmeal cookie base is everything you're familiar with to get your beloved soft, chewy oatmeal cookie.  I made my cookie dough a day in advance.  To bake, I scooped them by packing the dough into a small ice cream scoop.  Then, I used slightly damp fingers to mold a hole or a well for the fudge to settle into

The fudge.  It's made simply by stirring sweetened condensed milk and chocolate chips together on the stove-top over low heat.  Once the chocolate chips melt and the mixture is homogeneous and smooth, you're ready to go.

I recommend scooping out the cookie dough and shaping the wells and having that ready and set aside before making the fudge since the filling comes together so fast and the sooner you use it, the easier it is to handle and better the final cookie will look.  

Use two spoons to ease enough of the fudge to fill the hallow in the cookie dough.  

Keep the fudge on low heat when you're not working with it and stir the mixture every so often.  It'll dry out and over-thicken if you don't.  I found that as you get to the end of your little pot of fudge and use it to make a second batch, the fudge will have just a teeny bit more of a dry appearance (some may not look as beautifully glossy as the first batch).  It's not a big deal but basically, the faster you work with it, the better the final cookies will look.  If you are making a large quantity of these cookies and need to bake them in several trays, you might even consider making half the fudge at a time.

The cookies spread a little and around the filling during baking and the fudge becomes the centerpiece.  My cookies were ready, just golden brown, in about 10 minutes (versus the suggested 12-15 minutes in the recipe so check early).  I could have squeezed a few more cookies onto each baking tray - a good idea since you want to get as many in the oven as possible at once.

I think these are pretty neat oatmeal cookies!  My 8-year old proclaimed them "the best cookies ever" but I've heard that before.  He may have been speaking off the high from his soccer game but I really do think he enjoyed them thoroughly and that just made my day a little sweeter.


Recipe:

Fudge Oatmeal Cookies
Adapted from The Kitchn*

* I've scaled down and simplified the recipe here a little bit. Please check out the original recipe that includes walnuts, as well as a peanut butter version.  I scaled down the amount of fudge I made since I didn't want leftovers.  To make numbers a little easier to work with, you could use half a can of sweetened condensed milk (7 ounces) and 6 ounces (1 cup) of chocolate chips for the recipe below.  You'll likely have a little fudge leftover but that isn't such a bad thing, especially since it'll be easier to keep the fudge smooth and from drying out at the bottom of the pan as you work with it.

- Makes approximately 22 cookies (you can easily double the recipe) -

For cookies:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats

For fudge filling*:
4.7 ounces (one-third of a 14 ounce can) sweetened condensed milk
4 ounces (2/3 cup) semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips, or chopped chocolate

If planning to bake cookies immediately, preheat oven to 375 degrees and place oven racks on the upper and lower thirds of the oven.  Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or silicon mats.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.  In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream butter and sugars together until fluffy.  Add egg and vanilla, beating well to combine and scraping down the mixing bowl as needed.  On low speed, add the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.  Stir in the oats.  (If doing ahead, the cookie dough can be covered and refrigerated for up to 3 days.)

To bake, drop rounds of cookie dough using a small ice cream scoop onto the baking sheet, spacing mounds about an inch or so apart.  With slightly dampened fingers or the back of a spoon, make a well or nest in the middle of the cookie mounds for the filling.

To make the fudge filling, place condensed milk and chocolate chips in a small saucepan and warm over low heat.  Stir until chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth and homogeneous.  Drop a dollop of the fudge (I use two spoons) into each cookie dough nest, filling the hole entirely.  Keep fudge over a very low heat and stir occasionally.

Bake cookies until just lightly golden brown, approximately 10-12 minutes, rotating the sheets midway through the baking time.  Remove from the oven and let cool on cookie sheet for a few minutes before transferring cookies onto a cooling rack to cool completely.  The set fudge filling will be dry to the touch so the cookies are easy to stack and store.  Store cooled cookies in an airtight container for up to 5 days.