blackberry oatmeal sandwich cookies

After my lame attempts at perfecting my ideal chocolate chip cookie, I felt exhausted and utterly disappointed that something as common and seemingly easy as a chocolate chip cookie can suddenly seem 125X more difficult than I honestly think it should.

It's frustrating to see millions of recipes, claiming to be the best and heck, even scientific explanations behind each of them but c'mon, at the end of the day, a cookie is a cookie. And while I understand baking is a science, it shouldn't be so complicated!

 

So whatever Mr. CCC, I'm done with you today and I'm making this instead. It's absolutely delish, healthier definitely, and far more easier to deal with than you are. 

Blackberry Oatmeal Sandwich Cookies (adapted from Joy of Baking) 
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup packed brown sugar 
1/2 tsp baking powder 
1/2 cup cold salted butter, cut into small cubes 
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons milk
Jam filling (I used St.Dalfour's blackberry jam with no additional sugar, but any jam would work) 

Directions 
1. Place flour, sugar and baking powder in a bowl and whisk until thoroughly combined. You could process them in the food processor as per the original recipe.

2. Then, add the cold cubes of butter to the dry ingredients and mix it by hand until it looks like coarse crumbs. 

3. Add in the rolled oats, milk and vanilla extract and mix until combined. Again, you can do this all in the food processor if you prefer.

4.  Roll the dough out between two sheets of parchment paper, about 1/4 inch thick. Place the dough with the parchment paper onto a baking sheet and leave it in the refrigerator for about an hour or overnight (so that it completely firms up).

5. Once chilled and completely firm, peel off the top piece of parchment paper and using a round cookie cutter, cut out the cookies and place them on a baking sheet. Preheat oven to 350F and place the baking sheet with the cut out cookies in the refrigerator (this helps firm up the cutouts so that it doesn't spread too much when baking).

6. In the meantime, gather up the scraps of remaining dough, re-roll and place it in the refrigerator. You can now take the baking sheet (with the cut out cookies earlier) out and bake them about 12-15 mins (depending on your oven, or until they are golden brown around the edges). 

7. Place on the wire rack to cool. Once cooled, spread some jam onto the flat bottom of one cookie, and top it with another. Done!

Storage: Store them in air tight containers.