All-Oatmeal Crunchies

Originally from The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Books of Desserts, All-Oatmeal Crunchies are oatmeal cookies made with all oatmeal and no wheat flour.  What fills in for the wheat flour are toasted and ground almonds.

When this recipe was created, almond meal or almond flour wasn't so readily available, but these days you can find almond meal or almond flour in most grocery stores.  Next time I make these I am going to try using 45 grams of almond flour (which should be about equal to ½ cup almonds toasted and ground) instead of the almonds.

Makes about 2 ½ dozen

All-Oatmeal Crunchies

12 tablespoons butter
¾ cup packed light brown sugar
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest (or just use vanilla)
1 teaspoon baking powder
⅛ teaspoon salt (if using salted butter, increase to ½ teaspoon)
1 large egg
3 ¼ cups quick cooking oats, uncooked (don't use instant)
⅓-1/2 cup blanched whole almonds, toasted and ground
2 large egg yolks, slightly beaten

Place first 6 ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Beat for 10 minutes with an electric mixer, scraping bowl occasionally. Add oats and almonds; stir until well blended and mixture holds together - it will be kind of crumbly.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 large cookie sheets with parchment or Release foil or Silpats. Between two sheets of waxed paper, roll out half of the dough. Using a 2 ½ inch round cookie cutter or rim of a glass, cut as many cookies as possible and space them 1 inch apart on cookie sheets (they won't spread much). Brush tops with egg yolks. Repeat with remaining dough. Alternatively, you may just mash the dough directly onto the cookie sheet, cut out circles, and pull remaining dough off.

Bake cookies 12 minute or until golden. For crisper cookies, bake 14 minutes - check at 12. Remove from cookie sheet and set cookies on a wire rack to cool and crisp.

Note: I took a few off the tray after 12 minutes, turned off the heat in the oven, then put a few cookies back in the oven. I closed the door and let them cook with the oven's residual heat. They stayed there for about an hour (I forgot about them) and when I took them out, they were a little browner and very crispy. I actually liked them that way! So if you want these to be really crispy, you could give that a try.

Another variation I think would work is to omit the lemon, add a bit of vanilla and use Nestle Toll House Miniature Chocolate Chips (the tiny, tiny ones).