zenbelly

recipes for real life

  • About
  • Cookbooks
  • Recipes
  • House & Home

Chocolate Oatmeal Florentine Cookies

December 24, 2020 by zenbelly 4 Comments

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:

chocolate oatmeal florentine cookies

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.

chocolate oatmeal florentine cookies

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:

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.

Print

Chocolate Oatmeal Florentine Cookies

Print Recipe
Pin Recipe

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star

5 from 1 review

  • Author: zenbelly
  • Prep Time: 30 minutes
  • Cook Time: 30 minutes
  • Total Time: 1 hour
  • Yield: 3 dozen cookies
  • Category: dessert
  • Method: bake

Ingredients

  • 2 cups rolled oats
  • 3/4 cup tapioca starch
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon finely ground sea salt
  • 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 3/4 cup light or dark brown sugar (see note)
  • 3/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 1/2 cups (6 ounces) chopped dark chocolate (I used a combination of bittersweet and semi sweet)

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. 
  2. In the bowl of a food processor, blend 1 cup of the oats with the tapioca starch until it’s finely ground into a flour. 
  3. Add the remaining cup of oats along with the baking soda and salt and pulse 3-4 times to roughly chop the oats. 
  4. In the bowl of your stand mixer, or a large bowl if using hand beaters, cream the butter and sugars until it’s lighter in color and aerated. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. 
  5. Add the dry ingredients and the chocolate and stir just until combined. 
  6. Using a small cookie scoop (about a heaping tablespoon in volume), drop 6 cookies on each baking sheet. 
  7. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until evenly golden brown. Allow to cool before removing from the pan- they will continue to crisp up. 
  8. Repeat with the remaining dough. You can slide the cookies off the baking pans with the parchment after a minute or two out of the oven. 

Notes

To make brown sugar: beat together 1 cup of sugar and 1 tablespoon molasses until combined. For dark brown sugar, use 1 1/2 tablespoons molasses for each cup of sugar. 

Did you make this recipe?

Tag @zenbelly on Instagram and hashtag it #zenbelly


All of the links on zenbelly.com are for information purposes, however some are affiliate links to books, products or services. Any sponsored posts are clearly labelled as being sponsored content. Some ads on this site are served by ad networks and the advertised products are not necessarily recommended by Zenbelly.

Filed Under: Dessert Tagged With: glutenfree cookies, oatmeal cookies

« the 2020 zenbelly gift guide – shop small, get discounts
big flavor one skillet chicken with spinach, mustard & capers »

you might also like:

Comments

  1. Angela says

    June 6, 2021 at 5:25 pm

    These cookies are amazing!! I’ve made them once a week for the last few weeks and each time they get gobbled up right away!! Great job! Your recipes are so darn solid! I hate taking a risk with grain free baking because the ingredients are so expensive, but every single time I make one of yours it turns out so good that I don’t even make the disclaimer ‘this is grain free’ before I serve it to someone! Lol! Thank you!

    Reply
  2. jake3_14 says

    May 22, 2023 at 9:41 pm

    If you start with commercial oat flour, do you still use 1 C of it or do you use less?

    Reply
    • zenbelly says

      May 26, 2023 at 6:40 pm

      You’d use less. 1C of oats yields about 3/4 oat flour

      Reply
      • jake3_14 says

        November 19, 2023 at 9:10 pm

        I made the recipe before I saw your comment, and I guessed that this reduction would be the case. Thanks for confirming my intuition. Great recipe, BTW – it was fund swinging a mallet to break up blocks of chocolate.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe rating 5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star

About Me (Hi! I’m Simone)

Hello, and Welcome! I'm so glad you're here. Why? Because my most favorite thing is to help home cooks feel like pros in their kitchens. A little about me... I've been cooking professionally for a long time - around 25 years - and ...

Read More »

Archives

Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2025 · Foodie Pro Theme by Shay Bocks · Built on the Genesis Framework · Powered by WordPress