Butterscotch Oatmeal Cookies with Hazelnuts and Espresso
/These chewy butterscotch oatmeal cookies are filled with toasted hazelnuts and strong espresso. A quick and easy recipe, they make great freezer cookies--perfect for baking off at a moment's notice.
Us recipe developers work weird food schedules. For the blog, I try to create and plan content a month ahead, but for client work, it’s often farther in advance. This is how I found myself making Thanksgiving dinner at the end of September this year. I had a client project for a full Thanksgiving feast—turkey, stuffing, mac and cheese…the works, due at the beginning of October. For the weeks leading up to the shoot, I spent quite a bit of time on the phone with grocery stores trying to locate a turkey (fun fact, most grocery stores won’t get turkeys in stock until “closer to the holiday”, though they won’t tell you when exactly that will be and lots of meat managers are really not huge fans of people calling and asking about them). After finally securing myself an out-of-season turkey, I began to work on my full Thanksgiving dinner, a project that would leave me with somewhere close to a million pounds of leftovers that I really didn’t want.
So we threw a party. We celebrated Thanksgiving in early October with a group of friends who brought bonus sides and desserts pot-luck style. It was the first party we’ve hosted since moving to Minnesota and it was such a fun night, though I am officially turkey-ed out for the year. I’ll be eating spicy noodles or something completely different this year on actual Thanksgiving and I’ll be giving thanks for not having to cook a turkey twice in two months.
oatmeal cookies with butterscotch, hazelnuts, and espresso
I had this flavor idea swimming around in my head for a few weeks and decided to make a batch to go with our Thanksgiving party food so I could test them out on a group and they were a real hit. Think of them as classic oatmeal cookies with a bit of a grown-up twist.
I have three nonnegotiables when it comes to oatmeal cookies: 1) they should have crunchy edges 2) they should have soft, pillowy middles and 3) they should have a deep brown sugar flavor. These cookies hit all three and more.
I love steeping flavors into the butter for my cookies so this time we added instant espresso to our melted butter as the base of flavor. It’s then mixed with lots of brown sugar and sugar, eggs, vanilla, and dry ingredients (flour, oats, leavening agents, and salt). So easy. A bunch of toasted hazelnuts and butterscotch chips round it out and then they are chilled slightly before baking. Side note: this cookie dough smells AMAZING. My whole kitchen smelled like a tiny little coffee shop or the smell of the hazelnut coffee from Panera Bread.
When baking these cookies, take extra care not to over-bake so you don’t lose your soft, pillowy centers. I found that 8 minutes, tapping the tray on the counter, and then another 2-3 minutes worked perfectly in my oven. The centers will look underdone, but let the cookies cool completely on the pan and they will set up. Like most cookie recipes, this cookie dough freezes beautifully so that you can bake some off and have warm oatmeal cookies within 15 minutes.
Butterscotch Oatmeal Cookies with Hazelnuts and Espresso
Ingredients
- 1 cup (226 g) unsalted butter
- 2 tbsp instant espresso
- 3 cups (270 g) rolled oats
- 1 1/2 cup (190 g) all purpose flour
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1 cup (200 g) brown sugar
- 1/2 cup (100 g) granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 tsp vanilla powder (or 1 tsp vanilla extract)
- 11 oz butterscotch chips
- 1 cup toasted hazelnuts, roughly chopped
Instructions
- Place butter and espresso in a medium saucepan and cook over medium heat until butter is melted and espresso is dissolved. Set aside to cool.
- In a large bowl, stir together oats, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together brown sugar, granulated sugar, and espresso butter until smooth and homogenized and the mixture is room temperature.
- Add the eggs and vanilla and continue mixing for 1-2 minutes, until very smooth and completely combined.
- Gradually add the dry ingredients, mixing on low speed just until combined, followed by the butterscotch chips and the toasted hazelnuts.
- Using a large cookie scoop, scoop dough onto a parchment-lined baking sheet and chill for at least 30 minutes, preferably overnight.
- When you are ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350° F. Place cookies on another parchment-lined baking sheet, leaving about 2” space between cookies. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the edges are golden and the centers are just set. Sprinkle with flaky salt and let cool on the pan.
