chocolate Sunflower-Oat Lace Cookies
Lace cookies, which are intricate webs of toffee, look more complicated than they are. And these are far easier than many other recipes. Oats don’t require the resting that flour does to produce the cookie’s signature crispness, and the sunflower seeds in the batter make it spread easily since they’re chopped into bits. When these ingredients are cooked in the melted butter, they develop a toasty depth. The only problem with these cookies is how irresistible they are.
makes about 5 dozen
gluten-free, no nuts
- ¼ cup (24 g) old-fashioned rolled gluten-free oats
- ¼ cup (37 g) raw sunflower seeds
- 4 tablespoons (56 g) unsalted butter
- ⅓ cup (69 g) sugar
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 ounces white chocolate, melted
- 2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted
1. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350°F. Line a half sheet pan with a nonstick baking mat or parchment paper. If you have more pans and mats, prepare them too.
2. Pulse the oats and sunflower seeds in a food processor until the oats are finely chopped. Most of the seeds will be chopped too.
3. Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the oat-seed mixture and cook, stirring, until the oats and seeds are a shade closer to golden, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the sugar and salt, stirring until the sugar almost dissolves. Remove from the heat and stir to cool slightly.
4. Stirring vigorously, add the egg to the pan. (Stir fast: You don’t want the egg to scramble.) Stir in the vanilla. Using a ½-teaspoon measure, scoop ½-teaspoons of batter onto the prepared pan, spacing them 2 inches apart.
5. Bake until the batter spreads into flat, lacy golden brown disks, 7 to 9 minutes. So that you can reuse the pans, as each batch comes out, carefully slide the baking mat with the cookies onto a wire rack, run the pan under cold water to cool quickly, and wipe it dry. Then transfer the cookies to the wire rack with a thin spatula to cool completely and place the mat back on the pan. Repeat with the remaining batter.
6. Drizzle the chocolates over the cookies. Let stand until set.
MAKE AHEAD
The batter will keep in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. The cookies will keep for up to 1 week if it’s cool and dry. (They become sticky and soft in humid weather.)