Spiced Oatmeal Cookies! Thick, chewy and packed with rolled oats, cinnamon, cardamom and more! These are a must bake for your family this holiday season!
As I was driving home yesterday, I felt a sense of calm and peace. I love seeing all the leaves changing colors and falling and the crispness in the air. This is probably one of my favorite times of the year because the holidays are right around the corner.
Holiday baking, decorating and planning for the holidays. . I love it all.
I recently got to catch up with my friend, Melissa Bahen, who runs the blog, 
I absolutely love all of Melissa’s stories throughout this book and see why she wants to share all of her family traditions and her Scandinavian heritage with us! Her mother and grandmother were both amazing cooks and Melissa’s mother, extremely creative, “whether she was tole painting decorative plates or carefully illustrating a church newsletter” .. I love it when passions and interests are passed down from generation to generation and I especially love that Melissa will now have this beautiful cook to pass down to her children.
And the recipes?
This Cream Cake with Fresh Strawberries (Norwegian Blotkake, pages 182-184)!! Gorgeous!
The Braided Cardamom Bread, or Finnish Pulla (page 66) is definitely on my to bake list and I can’t wait to try these Ham & Gouda Tea Sandwiches with Sweet Onion Mustard Sauce (pages 24-25).
I absolutely love that this book is filled with delicious recipes and crafts! I can’t wait to try these Mason Jar Citronella Candles (down below). Aren’t they beautiful?
The Giveaway!
One lucky reader will WIN a copy of Scandinavian Gatherings! To enter: simply leave a comment down below and tell us why you’d like to win this book. . OR tell me about your favorite family tradition. Giveaway ends on October 26, 2016 at 12 midnight EST. Good luck!
Now, on to these cookies!!!
What Melissa says about these cookies: “Thin, lacy oatmeal cookies pop up often in my old Scandinavian cookbooks, but I have a soft spot for oatmeal cookies that are thick and chewy. I find them impossible to stay away from, especially warm and fresh from the oven. I gave my favorite oatmeal cookie recipe a Nordic holiday makeover by adding cardamom (considered the cinnamon of Scandinavia), tart dried cherries, and crunchy almonds. And if it’s possible, I like them even better than the originals.”
Melissa’s recipes calls for dried tart cherries, which I did not have, so I used dried goji berries instead. The cookies were still absolutely delicious but you’d better believe I am picking up some dried tart cherries so I can make these cookies exactly as the recipe states!
These cookies were magical and so delicious! I hope you try the recipe soon and ENTER THE GIVEAWAY to win this book!
Spiced Oatmeal Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter softened
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup lightly packed light brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon table salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground cardamom
- 3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
- 1 cup dried tart cherries
- ½ cup sliced almonds
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line three baking sheets with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl with an electric mixer or in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugars together on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Add the vanilla and mix until blended.
- In a medium bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and cardamom. Then add the dry ingredients to the butter-and-sugar mixture. Beat on low until combined.
- Stir in the oats, cherries, and almonds. The dough might be too thick for an electric mixer at this point. If that’s the case, stir in these last additions by hand with a wooden spoon.
- Scoop the dough into 2-tablespoon balls (about the size of a Ping-Pong ball), and place them 2 inches apart on the pre-pared baking sheets. Place twelve cookie dough balls on each baking sheet.
- Bake for about 11 minutes, or until the cookies are set and slightly flattened out. Put the cookies on a cooling rack to finish cooling completely.
*(c)2016 By Melissa Bahen. All rights reserved. Excerpted from Scandinavian Gatherings; From Afternoon Fika to Midsummer Feast 70 SIMPLE RECIPES & CRAFTS FOR EVERYDAY CELEBRATIONS: 70 Simple Recipes and Crafts for Everyday Celebrations by permission of Sasquatch Books.
