Soft & Chewy Oatmeal Scotchies - Sally's Baking Addiction (2024)

Published: 04/19/2018Updated: 01/26/2023

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 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

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