Breakfast Oatmeal Cookies

School morning breakfasts can be tough. Neither of us likes cereal and milk very much. I’d like to be the sort of mother to get up each day and make scrambled eggs or pancakes or waffles, but that rarely happens. Katie would happily eat Greek yogurt and honey every morning, but she is a very slow eater and on days when we are running late, we need something a bit quicker. I tend to make muffins and pancakes in batches and freeze for easy reheating in the morning. Right now we have both peach muffins and multi-grain pancakes in the freezer.

However, this past week Katie read in a book about a girl who has oatmeal cookies for breakfast. I have seen many recipes online for oatmeal breakfast cookies. So we played around a bit and found a cookie that may not be for everyday, but for those rushed mornings, just about perfect. Note that I used steel cut because we had them in the house. This makes for a crunchy cookie, which we both like but some my find odd. For a more traditional texture use rolled oats.

This recipe is based on one from Smitten Kitchen that can be found here:

http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/02/thick-chewy-oatmeal-raisin-cookies/

½ cup (1 stick or 4 ounces) butter, softened
½ cup light brown sugar, packed
1 egg
½ t vanilla extract

¼ cup whole wheat flour
½ cup all-purpose flour

½ t baking soda
¼ t ground cinnamon

¼ t nutmeg
½ t salt
1 ½ cups oats
¾ cup dried apricots (chopped roughly)

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a mixer, cream together the butter, brown sugar, egg and vanilla until smooth. Per my lazy baking ways add the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt and mix until combined. Stir in the oats and combine well. Add dried apricots and mix until incorporated .

Scoop the cookies onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes taking them out when golden at the edges but still a little undercooked-looking on top. Note that if you use rolled oats, baking time will be significantly less. Transfer to a rack to cool.