Full disclosure: These Chocolate Oatmeal Florentine Cookies were a total accident. I was going for crispy on the edges, chewy in the center oatmeal cookies.

They may have been an accident, but these chocolate oatmeal Florentine cookies were a happy accident!

They were also my second attempt; the first round should have been perfect but nope. I was craving oatmeal cookies, so I made a batch based on a recipe I found online, just swapping out the flour with cassava flour.

They were dry and crumbly. Sad face. Which made me want really good oatmeal cookies even more. So I did some research. 3am insomnia research. What? You don’t read about cookies when you can’t sleep? That’s weird.

The next day in the kitchen, I was armed with my middle of the night cookie knowledge, softened butter, lots of oats, and a dream. I could so clearly see the cookies that would emerge from the oven. They’d be crispy on the edges. They’d be chewy and thick, with big melty chunks of chocolate. They’d be craggy. I lost track of how many times I read the word craggy during my cookie research. Food writers love the word craggy when they’re talking about cookies.

And then I pulled these out of the oven:

Well to be completely honest, I pulled one single cookie out of the oven, because that’s kind of weird shit you do when you do recipe testing- Bake one single cookie.

Not what I was expecting. Super flat. So I added more flour. And baked again. Still super flat. But by now, the first solo cookie had cooled, and it was… crispy? Buttery? Maybe even so thin is was see through? Like a Florentine cookie!

I am still going to master those damn crispy-chewy oatmeal chocolate chunk cookies. But I’m happy about this little cookie accident.

Let’s talk about these cookies, shall we?

They are oatmeal cookies. That makes them automatically not paleo. If you avoid all grains, wait, if you all avoid all grains, why are you still reading this? That’s silly. Okay so these cookies have not only oatmeal but both regular granulated and brown sugar. If you can’t have those things, then perhaps scroll my other dessert recipes and find a cookie that’s fits your needs.

As for me this year, my needs involve chilling the fuck out about what I eat, and baking with sugar.

Cool? Cool. Let’s talk the ingredients in these chocolate oatmeal florentine cookies.

Oats: the main ingredient, and they’re used in two ways- blended into a flour, and pulsed a few times so they’ve still got some texture.

Chocolate: Yes, you can use chocolate chips. But I wish you wouldn’t. I mean I won’t lose any sleep over it (I’ll just lose sleep like normal), but you want the cookies – you guessed it – craggy. And since the cookies flatten out so much, and chips hold their shape, you’ll wind up with flat cookies with chocolate chip bumps. Far from the end of the world, but will not come out as pictured here.

Brown sugar and white sugar: I went years without having these ingredients in my kitchen, opting for more “paleo approved” sugars. I’ve ranted on and on about that in other blog posts and on Instagram but today I’ll just say this: These sugars make great cookies and are so much freaking cheaper. I make my own brown sugar by mixing granulated sugar with molasses in a stand mixer. Use 1 tablespoon molasses for each cup of sugar for light brown sugar. Mix until it’s incorporated.

How to make Chocolate Oatmeal Florentine Cookies:

First, you’ll want to grind half the oats into a flour in either a food processor or blender, along with the tapioca starch which will keep it from clumping.

And then, add the remaining oats along with the other dry ingredients and pulse a few times. Now all your dry ingredients are mixed.

And then you beat the butter and sugars until they’re light and fluffy. And then add the eggs and vanilla. Mix in the dry ingredients and the chopped chocolate and you’re ready to bake! Sorry I didn’t take process photos for all of those steps, I was too excited about cookies.