Absolute Oatmeal Deliciousness

So I've been on an oatmeal kick lately. Oatmeal for breakfast. Sometimes oatmeal for lunch. Possibly oatmeal for dinner. It's just that good. Not just any oatmeal, but oatmeal with ALMOND butter on top of it. Pretty much the best meal. Ever. You can add other toppings, like bananas, apples, trail mix, craisins, but never without the almond butter. In light of all this oatmeal eating, I decided I wanted to BAKE something with oatmeal. I love butterscotch oatmeal cookies, but not that big of a fan of oatmeal raisin cookies, because I don't really like raisins. Hence the reason I went on a search for some other options.  I stumbled upon a recipe from Monica at Lick the Bowl Good for what she claims are the "best oatmeal cookies she's ever had." Not only did the cookies sound good, but she made oatmeal sandwiches out of them with homemade dulce de leche. YUM.

The best thing about these cookies is that I had ALL the ingredients on hand. Two weeks in a row, I'm getting good. Not only that, but I've become better about my time management and set the butter out to make these a few hours before so that I could get it to room temperature. Genius.
I followed the recipe that you can find here. The cookie dough was absolutely amazing! I just wanted to eat it raw (bad, I know), because it was so so good. Cinnamon, nutmeg, and oatmeal=absolute deliciousness. Some of the dough did make it in the oven and made chewy, sweet cookies.

While I mixed up and baked the cookies, I put my can of sweetened condensed milk into a pot of boiling water then slowly let it simmer for a few hours.  Like I said before, I've never made dulce de leche, nor have I ever boiled a sealed can of milk. Weird.  Here's the deal. The recipe says you have to cook it for 2-4 hours for it to turn a nice caramel color. Well, you know me,  I have very little patience, if any at all. I made the mistake of trying to make all of this after work one night (I get home at 7:30pm) but didn't put my can to cook until around 8ish, so by the time 10:00 rolled around I was EXHAUSTED and didn't want to wait for the milk to keep cooking. So I took it off the burner and started to let it sit and cool like I was supposed to. Once again, no patience. Decided I didn't want to wait for it to cool, so just started opening the can. Bakers beware: boiling a can of milk in hot water and opening while it is still hot results in scalding sugary milk spewing all over your hands. Ouch. Lesson learned, let cool before handling. 

But here is where the REAL disappoint comes in. My milk had BARELY caramelized---ugh. I was determined to have some sort of dulce de leche, though, so I poured the milk into a pot and put it on the stove.  I let it cook on low heat for about 20 minutes and ended of with a thick, slightly caramel colored dulce de leche.  Put it in between two cookies and it was delicious! 

I completely agree that with or without the dulce de leche goodness, these oatmeal cookies are indeed the best I've ever had. I cannot. stop. eating. them.  Oh well, once they're gone, they're gone, right?

I definitely suggest everyone try these. Enjoy!