This isn’t the time of year for a hot bowl of oatmeal, but I had a craving that wouldn’t go away. I wanted the chewy texture of steel cut oats, with toasted hazelnuts, and maple syrup. Since peaches are in season, I gave summer a nod and added those to my breakfast.
I think a lot of people don’t enjoy steel cut oats as often as they like because of how long they take to cook, about 20 minutes with frequent stirring. There are lots of ways to make this easier, and I’ve tried most of them. One is to use a crockpot with a timer. Place the oats and water in the crockpot the night before. Schedule the timer to start about 2 hours before you want to eat, and wake up to fragrant ready to eat breakfast. Another is to make them in a pressure cooker, which will cut that time in half, but pressure cookers take time to get to temp, and then time for the steam to release before unlocking it, so in the end I don’t feel like that saves that much time.
What I do is soak the oats overnight. I place one cup of oats in a quart jar and fill it 2/3 full of water. Cover it and let it sit overnight on the counter. The next day I drain the water and place the oats in a medium pot. Add two cups of water, a pinch or two of salt and put it on the stove, stir it occasionally and bring to a boil. I reduce it to a simmer, partially cover it and let it cook about 8 minutes, stirring and checking occasionally. I turn off the heat, and leave it on the stove covered an additional two minutes, then it is the perfect texture and ready to eat.
I ladled myself a bowl full, topped it with a generous handful of chopped toasted hazelnuts, a few slices of fresh peaches, a drizzle of maple syrup and a splash of cream and was thoroughly satisfied.
But wait, that’s not all!
After breakfast, I was looking at the leftover cooked oats, thinking about other things to make with the cooked oats and decided to make breakfast cookies with them. I hadn’t baked with cooked steel cut oats before and was curious about how it would impact texture. I wanted a large cookie since in theory it’s a breakfast replacement, but in fact we eat them as a snack during the day. I added pecans and flax seeds since I love that combination with an oatmeal cookie, and baked them up. Rather than coming out with crispy edges like a classic oatmeal cookie, these cookies came out soft, cakelike, and toothsome. A successful experiment.
Steel Cut Oats Breakfast Cookies
To make this more substantial feel free to add dried fruit, more nuts, chocolate, or rolled oats to the cookie dough before baking.
½ (one cube) butter, room temperature
1 C cooked steel cut oats, room temperature
½ C brown sugar
½ C sugar
1 egg
2 t vanilla extract
1 ¼ C flour
½ t cinnamon
½ t salt
½ t baking soda
½ c chopped pecans
3 T flax seeds
Instructions
Heat oven to 375°. Line two cookie sheets with parchment.
In a medium bowl combine butter and oats and mix well (I used a wooden spoon, but feel free to use a mixer if you’d prefer).
Add the sugars and vanilla and mix well. Add the egg and beat until smooth.
Add the flour, cinnamon, salt, and baking soda, and mix until the flour is thoroughly incorporated. Mix in the nuts and flax seed.
Using a large scoop, scoop the dough onto the parchment lined baking sheet, leaving plenty of room for the cookies to spread, I only placed 8 cookies per pan. Place in the oven and bake about 17-20 minutes or until the cookies are lightly browned.
Cool completely before storing in an airtight container. This recipe made 15 large cookies and one small one. They can be stored at room temperature for about a week, or freeze for longer storage.
