Double Chocolate Oat Cookies

These chocolate oat cookies earn the “double” in their name. Half the chocolate chips get melted and beaten into the batter, creating a deeply chocolatey dough. The other half stays whole and gets folded in at the end for gooey pockets of melted chocolate in every bite.

Rolled oats replace some of the flour, giving these a chewier, heartier texture than a standard chocolate cookie. The oats absorb moisture during baking and keep the cookies soft for days.

Beating the margarine and sugar until fluffy before adding the melted chocolate is the step that determines the texture. That creaming traps air in the dough. Skip it or rush it and the cookies come out flat and dense.

Eight to ten minutes in the oven is all they need. They’ll look slightly underdone when you pull them, but the three-minute rest on the hot cookie sheet finishes the bake. Overbaking turns fudgy cookies into dry, crumbly ones.

Pro Tips

• Cool the melted chocolate slightly before adding it to the creamed margarine and sugar. Hot chocolate melts the margarine and deflates the air you just beat in.
• Don’t substitute butter for margarine without adjusting. Butter has more water content and the cookies spread differently.
• Use a rounded spoonful, not a flat one. These don’t spread much and a flat drop bakes into a thin, crispy disc.

Variations

• Peanut butter chocolate: Swirl a tablespoon of peanut butter into the dough for a chocolate-PB combo.
• White chocolate chips: Use white chocolate chips for the whole pieces instead of semi-sweet for a sweeter contrast.
• Espresso boost: Add a teaspoon of instant espresso to the melted chocolate to intensify the chocolate flavor.