Oatmeal Scotchies

These chewy Oatmeal Scotchies have a butter and brown sugar base and are packed full of butterscotch pieces! Soft, buttery, and chewy, these are classic cookies that are so simple to make! Includes a how-to video below the recipe!

Oatmeal Scotchies

Today’s cookies are similar to oatmeal cookies, but slightly richer, slightly sweeter, and with a butterscotch base flavor. However, I didn’t just take my oatmeal cookie recipe (beloved as it is), toss some butterscotch chips into the cookie dough, and call it a day.

That would have been easy, sure, but today’s recipe required a bit more work than that. Oatmeal scotchies revolve around butterscotch flavor. Sure, the butterscotch chips that we’re adding are the most obvious way to drive that flavor profile home, but there’s more to be done with the cookie dough overall.

Butterscotch, as you may already know, is made by melting together sugar and butter. It’s similar to caramel in this way, but made exclusively with brown sugar instead of granulated (so technically my caramel popcorn might be more appropriately called butterscotch popcorn, but I digress). Knowing that this melted butter and brown sugar combo is key to butterscotch flavor, you might be able to guess how today’s recipe starts off…

Classic Cookie Ingredients 👆🏻

While we’re doing some things differently with these oatmeal scotchies than we’d be doing with a traditional oatmeal cookie recipe, the ingredients largely remain the same (with the exception of the chips, of course). Here’s how we’re using them to make a soft, chewy cookie with a strong butterscotch flavor…

Start with melted butter

I love using melted butter in my cookies because it 1) makes for an easy dough — everything can be stirred together by hand and, 2) enriches every molecule of your cookie dough with buttery flavor and makes for a chewier, more flavorful/buttery cookie. In this oatmeal scotchie recipe it serves yet another purpose. We’ll be combining the melted butter with sugar to give these cookies a butterscotch-flavored base.

A “true” butterscotch would require melting the sugar along with the butter, but keep in mind that you don’t want to melt your sugar here (more on that in the tips section below).

All brown sugar

Since butterscotch is made with brown sugar instead of granulated, that’s what we’re using. I like to use a blend of both light and dark brown sugar, but if you only have light brown sugar on hand then just use that (substitute the dark brown sugar in the recipe for light brown). Using all dark brown sugar could also work, but these already sweet cookies will be even sweeter.

Then, of course, we’ll need to add some butterscotch chips…

Enjoy!

More Cookie Recipes to Try:

• Monster Cookies
• Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
• No-Bake Cookies
• Scotcharoos

Let’s bake together! Head on over to my YouTube channel where I’ve already uploaded over 200 recipe videos that you can watch for free!

Oatmeal Scotchies

These Oatmeal Scotchies are thick, soft, and chewy, and loaded with oats and butterscotch pieces! Be sure to check out the video below the recipe!

5 from 4 votes

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Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 12 minutes

Chilling Time: 1 hour

Servings: 24 cookies

Calories: 240kcal

Author: Sam Merritt

Ingredients

• ▢ 1 cup unsalted butter melted and cooled until no longer warm to the touch (226g)
• ▢ ¾ cup light brown sugar firmly packed (150g)
• ▢ ¾ cup dark brown sugar¹ firmly packed (150g)
• ▢ 2 large eggs room temperature preferred
• ▢ 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
• ▢ 1 ¾ cup + 2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour 230g
• ▢ 1 Tablespoon cornstarch
• ▢ 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ▢ ¾ teaspoon salt
• ▢ ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon optional
• ▢ 3 cups old fashioned rolled oats² 270g
• ▢ 1 ½ cups butterscotch chips plus additional for topping if desired (255g)

Recommended Equipment

• ▢
  Mixing bowls
• ▢
  Cookie sheets

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Instructions

• Combine butter and sugars in a large bowl and stir until well-combined.
• Add eggs and vanilla extract, stir well.
• In a separate, medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon (if using).
• Gradually stir dry ingredients into wet until completely incorporated.
• Add oats, stir until combined. Finally, stir in 1 ½ cups butterscotch chips.
• Cover bowl with plastic wrap and transfer to refrigerator to chill for at least one hour,
• Once dough has chilled, preheat oven to 350F (175C).
• Drop cookie dough by 2 Tablespoon-sized scoops onto parchment paper lined baking sheets³, spacing cookies at least 2” apart.
• Bake cookies in 350F (175C) preheated oven for 12-13 minutes or until edges are beginning to look golden brown. Centers may look slightly underdone when cookies are finished baking, they will cook completely as they cool on the baking sheet (don’t over-bake or the cookies will be dry).
• If desired, press additional butterscotch chips into the surface of the cookies within 2 minutes of them coming out of the oven.

Notes

¹You can use all light brown sugar if you don’t have dark brown.

²Do not substitute instant or quick oats or your cookies will be dry and crumbly.

³I like to roll the dough between my palms before dropping on the cookie sheet to form a round ball of dough. This isn’t necessary but will make your cookies look rounder/prettier when they’ve finished baking.

Nutrition

Serving: 1cookie | Calories: 240kcal | Carbohydrates: 37g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 9g | Saturated Fat: 5g | Cholesterol: 35mg | Sodium: 171mg | Potassium: 72mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 22g | Vitamin A: 267IU | Calcium: 23mg | Iron: 1mg

Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered an estimate only. Actual nutritional content will vary based upon brands used, measuring methods, cooking method, portion sizes, and more.

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