Triple Ginger Oat Crispies
Not your grandma's oatmeal cookie.
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Hello! This first recipe post marks the real beginning of a *new era* for Crumbs & Nibbles. As I mentioned in my welcome note, I’m thrilled to be back after a hiatus that was nearing three years—back with new recipes, new stories, and on a new platform. Believe it or not, this is the 100th recipe post I’ve written for C&N. How I just so happened to stop at 99 over on my Wordpress blog is beyond me, but I’m taking it all as a sign that I had unfinished business with this little project of mine.
Creating and communicating in this very specific mode is something I’ve so missed over the past few years, and it’s also something I feel I’ve fallen out of practice of. The same can be said for recipe developing: There just didn’t seem to be much point in going through the intensely iterative, sometimes painstaking process that is developing recipes if I didn’t have a platform that I was excited to share them on. Was I cooking and experimenting and playing in the kitchen over the past few years? Of course. But I wasn’t necessarily doing so in a way that could be replicated by others.
That is, until I started toying around with this recipe in July of 2022. It was actually an attempt at recreation—as much as I love coming up with new and exciting recipes, the science nerd and problem solver in me finds so much joy in the process of reverse engineering the foods I’ve encountered and fallen in love with out in the wild. These cookies are inspired by the Oat Crunch Cookies from My Fit Kitchen by Anke, a Red Hook-based bakery whose goods are stocked at various specialty stores. The originals are delightfully light, more so crispy than crunchy despite their name. I knew before looking at the (short) ingredient list that they’re made up primarily of whole rolled oats, and the listed ingredients confirmed my hunch that egg whites account for their crisp texture.
These cookies come in a few flavors, but the ginger has always been my favorite. I had two goals for this recipe: recreate the texture I so loved from the originals and introduce even more ginger flavor.
After seven (7!) tests, I landed on a formula that features an egg white whisked with sugar for structure, an egg yolk for fat and tenderness, an addition of oat flour along with the rolled oats to give the cookies a bit of density, and three forms of ginger: powdered, fresh, and crystallized. The resulting cookies are completely addictive and totally passable as breakfast IMO—and yes, I’d argue they’re better than the original. They also take all of 10 minutes to get into the oven, which means if you start now you could be snacking on them in the amount of time it takes to watch that video of Jeremy Allen White about 40 times on repeat. Or something like that.
This recipe makes six cookies, but it’s easily doubled (or tripled or quadrupled). If ginger’s not your thing, leave it out and play around with the base! I could see other warm spices like cardamom and cinnamon being lovely here, or you could add some mix-ins—just veer away from anything with much moisture to it, or your cookies may not achieve that signature crisp texture. Chocolate chips and nuts would be great adds.
Triple Ginger Oat Crispies
Makes 6 cookies (and yes, you should double it)
Ingredients
½ cup (52g) old-fashioned oats
¼ cup (30g) oat flour (see note)
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
½ tsp baking powder
¾ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground ginger
1 tsp grated ginger
1 large egg white
1 large egg yolk
¼ cup sugar
A few pieces of crystallized ginger, chopped
Method
1. Heat the oven to 350 °F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. In a small bowl, combine oats, oat flour, salt, cinnamon, ground ginger, and baking powder. Set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk egg whites until foamy, then add in sugar and whisk until thick and opaque. Whisk in egg yolks and grated ginger. Fold in the dry ingredients until well combined.
4. Spoon 6 even mounds onto the cookie sheet (I use a size 40 cookie scoop) and flatten into thin rounds, leaving 1½ to 2 inches between them. Top each round with a few pieces of crystallized ginger.
5. Bake for 18-22 minutes, or until golden and crisp at the edges. Place the pan on a wire rack to cool completely.
Note: If you don’t have oat flour on hand, you can make your own by whizzing whole oats in a food processor or blender.
Finally made these! My edges darkened much quicker than the centers so after pulling them out of the oven, I immediately used a cookie cutter to cut out the centers and ended up with adorable coin-sized bites. Thanks for sharing <3
Yum 😋