Oatmeal Cookies

Just before the holidays, I picked up those little packets of Instant Oatmeal on clearance.  More oatmeal than I really should have when the expiration date was quickly closing in. (Honestly, some were past their expiration date.) So, I decided to see if I could make oatmeal cookies out of them. I mean, I bought my favorite flavor of oatmeal - apple cinnamon.  How can you go wrong with Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal Cookies?

My first batch was good.  Not great.  I used a 1:1 correspondence of packets to the amount of oatmeal that the recipe called for.  This turned out to be overwhelming.  Each packet of instant oatmeal contains about 1/3 cup of oatmeal, plus a TBSP of sugar.  I use the Quaker Oatmeal Cookie recipe.  Following that recipe, and using a 1:1 correspondence for Oatmeal Packets, plus creaming the 1-1/4 cups of sugar that the recipe calls for, that added about an extra 3/4 of a cup of sugar.  Which is way too much sugar.  It was like biting into a sugar cube.  

Note: After we sampled that batch, I took the rest into work, where Tyler proceeded to demolish all of them in less than 4 hours, saying that someone had finally managed to make oatmeal cookies edible.  Let's be honest.  They weren't oatmeal cookies, they were sugar held together with a little bit of oatmeal and some flour.

Since then, I've been experimenting.  I feel like creaming the shortening and sugar together are an imperative step in the cookie making process.  And the oatmeal packets have a lot of white sugar in them.  So, I began experimenting with the amount of white sugar that I added to be creamed, and changed the proportion of oatmeal packets to regular oatmeal.  

After much taste testing, here is my final version, based upon the Quaker Oatmeal recipe:

Apple Cinnamon Instant Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients

1 ¼ cups shortening, softened (We use shortening because of family dairy allergies)

¾ cup brown sugar

¼ cup granulated sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1 ½ cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

2 cups dry oats

3 packets of instant oatmeal, your flavor of choice

Directions:

Heat oven to 375*

Cream together sugars and shortening until creamy.

Add egg and vanilla, beat well.

Add all ingredients except oats, mix well.

Add oats in all their forms, mix well.

Drop by rounded TBSP onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake for 8-10 minutes.

Let cool on cookie sheet for a couple of minutes, then move to a wire rack.

Store tightly covered.