Soft and chewy oatmeal scotchies are cinnamon-spiced, sweetened with brown sugar, packed with oats, and loaded with butterscotch chips. With crisp edges and chewy centers, every bite is buttery, delicious, and packed with texture.
Butterscotch chips or butterscotch morsels, whatever you call them, are an oatmeal cookie’s best friend. Dare I say these two are even better friends than oatmeal cookies and raisins? And you know how I feel about oatmeal raisin cookies!
These Are the Best Oatmeal Scotchies And Here’s Why
Butterscotch brings you right back to childhood eating butterscotch candies at grandma’s kitchen table. Pair that with cinnamon and these cookies scream nostalgia. Not only are they nostalgic, they’re:
- Soft and chewy in the center
- Slightly crisp on the edges
- Loaded with oats for mega texture
- Studded with butterscotch morsels
- Cinnamon spiced
- Just like grandma’s
- No crazy ingredients or mixing techniques
I plead my case. Oatmeal scotchies rule.
Best Ingredients to Use in Oatmeal Scotchies
- Flour: All-purpose flour is the structure of the cookies.
- Baking Soda: Baking soda helps the cookies rise.
- Cinnamon: Cinnamon and butterscotch are a winning flavor combination. You’ll love the sweet cinnamon spice in each bite.
- Salt: Salt adds flavor.
- Butter: We use 1 cup of room temperature butter in this cookie recipe. Make sure your butter is at proper room temperature—if it’s too warm, your cookies will overspread. Here are my tips and tricks for how to prevent cookies from spreading. See the picture below for properly softened butter. It’s actually cool to touch, not warm. When you press it, your finger will make an indent. For even more information, here’s an in-depth post about room temperature butter. Worth the read!
- Sugar: Sugar is not only used for sweetness, but also for providing structure and tenderness. We use both brown sugar and white granulated sugar in this recipe. I like to use more brown sugar than white sugar because (1) brown sugar has incredible flavor and (2) brown sugar contains more moisture than white, which produces a softer cookie. I use the higher brown sugar to white sugar ratio in my chocolate chip cookies, too.
- Eggs: 2 eggs help bind everything together.
- Molasses: Molasses is my secret ingredient! Just 1 scant Tablespoon of molasses in oatmeal cookies enhances all the wonderful flavors of buttery sweet oatmeal butterscotch cookies.
- Vanilla Extract: Pure vanilla extract adds flavor.
- Oats: There are a ton of oats in this recipe. Whole old-fashioned oats provide a fabulously chewy texture.
- Butterscotch Morsels: Butterscotch morsels are a little smaller than chocolate chips, so you can really pack them into each cookie. I actually counted 20 of them in 1 single cookie. And that’s not an exaggeration!
Room temperature butter is about 65°F (18°C), which is likely cooler than your kitchen. So if your cookies are spreading too much, you’re probably softening your butter too much. Good rule of thumb: set your butter out on the counter 1 hour before you begin. If it gets too soft (use your finger to test), place back in the refrigerator for 10 minutes. Don’t sabotage your efforts; make sure your butter is the correct consistency before you begin.
By the way, here’s my trick to soften butter quickly.
Overview: How to Make Oatmeal Scotchies
These soft and chewy oatmeal scotchies start from my base oatmeal cookie recipe. We use the same base recipe for oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, magic 5 cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, and many more. It’s an oatmeal cookie recipe I’ve been playing around with for years and I love creating new variations! What’s even better? They come together quickly and easily.
- Whisk the dry ingredients together, beat the wet ingredients together, then combine both. Mix in the oats and butterscotch morsels. This is a super sticky and thick cookie dough. Cover the dough and chill it in the refrigerator for at least 45 minutes, an important step for this cookie dough. When you’re ready to bake the cookies, scoop about 3 Tablespoons of cookie dough per cookie and form into balls. Here is the large cookie scoop I love and highly recommend for this sticky dough. Bake the cookies until they’re lightly browned on the sides. While the cookies are still warm, I like to press a few more butterscotch morsels into the tops—this is only for looks!
More Favorite Cookie Recipes
- Peanut Butter Cookies
- Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
- White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
- Sugar Cookies
- Monster Cookies
Soft & Chewy Oatmeal Scotchies
- Prep Time: 1 hour, 10 minutes (includes dough chilling)
- Cook Time: 14 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour, 40 minutes
- Yield: 20-22 cookies
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
These soft & chewy oatmeal scotchies cookies are loaded with butterscotch chips in every bite. The centers are chewy and soft, the edges are crisp, and every bite is buttery delicious!
Ingredients
- 1 and 1/2 cups (188g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (16 Tbsp; 226g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 cup (200g) packed light or dark brown sugar
- 1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1 Tablespoon (15ml) unsulphured or dark molasses (do not use blackstrap; I prefer Grandma’s brand)
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 3 cups (255g) old-fashioned whole rolled oats
- 2 cups (280g) butterscotch morsels
Instructions
- Whisk the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl. Set aside.
- In a large bowl using a hand mixer or a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together on medium-high speed until combined and creamy, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs, molasses, and vanilla and beat on high speed until combined, about 1 minute. Scrape down the sides and up the bottom of the bowl and beat again as needed to combine.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix on low until combined. With the mixer running on low speed, beat in the oats and butterscotch morsels. Dough will be thick and sticky. Cover and chill the dough for at least 45 minutes in the refrigerator (and up to 4 days). If chilling for longer than a few hours, allow to sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes before rolling and baking because the dough will be quite hard.
- Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Set aside.
- Scoop cookie dough (here’s the large cookie scoop I love), about 3 Tablespoons of dough per cookie, and place 4 inches apart on the baking sheets. Bake for 13-14 minutes or until lightly browned on the sides. The centers will look very soft.
- Remove from the oven and allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. While the cookies are still warm, I like to press a few more butterscotch morsels into the tops—this is only for looks!
- Cookies stay fresh covered at room temperature for up to 1 week.
Notes
- Make Ahead Instructions: You can make the cookie dough and chill it in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Allow to come to room temperature then continue with step 4. Baked cookies freeze well for up to 3 months. Unbaked cookie dough balls freeze well for up to 3 months. Bake frozen cookie dough balls for an extra minute, no need to thaw. Here are my tips and tricks for how to freeze cookie dough.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand) | Baking Sheet | Silicone Baking Mat or Parchment Paper | Large Cookie Scoop | Cooling Rack
- Molasses: 1 Tablespoon of molasses helps give these cookies incredible flavor. Be sure to use unsulphured or dark molasses (do not use blackstrap; I prefer Grandma’s brand). If you don’t have any, simply leave it out. Do not replace with anything else.
- Brown Sugar: I prefer using dark brown sugar in oatmeal scotchies.
- Be sure to check out my top 5 cookie baking tips AND these are my 10 must-have cookie baking tools.
Tasted fine but mine were too spread out. Must have done something wrong! No idea why but back to My old recession maybe less chewy but don’t spread so much.
Can I bake these all in a cookie sheet as a pan cookies
Hi Holley, you can turn this cookie recipe into a cookie bar recipe! This cookie dough should fit into a 9×13-inch baking pan or for much thicker cookie bars, use a 9-inch square pan. Same temperature, we’re unsure of the exact bake time though. Hope you enjoy them!
I have a full bag of butterscotch chips and about a half bag of chocolate chips. Could I add the chocolates to the butterscotch chips so I can use up the chocolate chips? Thank you.
Yes, absolutely.
Thank you!
I feel validated that other had the same issue! Cookies spread SO much after being chilled overnight, raw center and edges over baked. This blog has so many great and reliable recipes, but unfortunately this ain’t one of them.