Oatmeal Almond Lace Cookies

One word describes these cookies: Total disaster. Er... two words.

Actually, they were really yummy -- tasty enough that I will inevitably feel drawn to attempt this recipe again. It's hard to resist a recipe where I generally have all the ingredients in my kitchen at any given moment -- it brings about fantasies of entertaining guests with fresh-out-of-the-oven baked goods at a moment's notice.

But I'm glad I was alone in my apartment when I attempted to make these, because my guests would have been sorely disappointed. I took them out of the oven, and they looked lovely -- crisp and pretty and delicious-smelling, as you can see...

And then I tried to take them off of the pan. And found myself behind the wheel of a very serious cookie train wreck. When I lifted them with my fingers, they fell apart. When I tried to gingerly detach them from the baking sheet with a spatula, they receded into very un-lacy blobs. After eating a few (tasty!) oatmeal-honey blobs, I was forced to throw the batch out.

So where, exactly, did I go wrong?

I can point to a few possibilities. First, I got this recipe from Cooking Light, and the original recipe called for corn syrup, but I used honey. Maybe honey is sticker? I actually had corn syrup on hand, but I went with honey because I thought the flavor would be better. So perhaps that was the mistake.

Also, the recipe called for "chopped blanched almonds, toasted." I blanched the almonds myself and then chopped them in my food processor, but didn't toast them. The result was that they were still a little damp, so maybe that threw off the texture. Next time I will just use raw chopped almonds, which every other lace cookie recipe seems to call for. (See? This is what I get for following a recipe!).

I'm not sure it makes sense to post the recipe I used to make these, but I will. And, more importantly, I will make some variation of these cookies again, because I really want to see them taste good and come off the pan in one piece!

Oatmeal-Almond Lace Cookies

From Cooking Light, May 2008

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup regular oats, toasted

1/3 cup honey

1 tablespoon canola oil

2 tablespoons butter

1/3 cup sugar

1 large egg

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup chopped blanched almonds, toasted

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 400°.

2. Combine the first 3 ingredients in a medium bowl. Melt butter in a small saucepan over low heat. Cook 2 minutes or until butter begins to brown (do not burn). Pour into oat mixture; stir well.

3. Place sugar and egg in a medium bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until light and fluffy (about 2 minutes). Beat in vanilla.

4. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt, stirring with a whisk. Stir flour mixture into egg mixture. Stir egg mixture into oat mixture. Add almonds; stir well to combine.

5. Drop dough by heaping teaspoonfuls 2 inches apart onto 2 baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Bake at 400° for 4 minutes or until golden. Cool on pans 2 minutes. Transfer parchment to cooling rack; cool completely.

Makes 3 dozen cookies, if you can get them off the pan.