These high altitude oatmeal lace cookies are thin and chewy with crisp, caramelized edges and flavor notes of buttery brown sugar toffee. Enjoy the cookies plain, or drizzle them with melted chocolate!
You might also love these oatmeal cream pie cookie bars, old fashioned iced oatmeal cookies, and brown butter oatmeal raisin cookies.
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What are Lace Cookies?
Oatmeal lace cookies or “laceys” are thin, crisp cookies that taste like toffee and caramel, with brittle golden edges that are deeply caramelized. You can under bake them slightly if you like them more chewy and bendy, or bake them a bit longer for crunchier cookies. As they bake, the sugar bubbles and caramelizes, creating tiny holes throughout the cookies (the lacy effect), and the cookies actually look translucent when held up to the light.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Easy to Make. This is a truly simple recipe. You’ll only need a few basic ingredients to make the dough, with no mixer and no chill time needed.
High Altitude Tested. I develop all the recipes on my site for Denver’s altitude of 5,280 feet. If you’re at a lower or higher elevation, please see my FAQs for guidance on adjusting recipes for your altitude.
See the recipe card at the end of the post for the full ingredients list and instructions.
Ingredients
- Butter. Use unsalted butter, or omit/reduce the added salt if using salted butter. The butter adds moisture and flavor to the cookies.
- Sugar. You’ll need light or dark brown sugar for sweetness, and to create the crispy caramelized edges.
- Golden Syrup. The syrup is an invert sugar, so it helps to stabilize the sugar as it caramelizes, preventing a grainy texture.
- Flour. Just a little all purpose flour acts as a binder.
- Vanilla Extract. Flavor.
- Salt. Balances the sweetness.
- Oats. Use old fashioned rolled oats for the best texture.
- Egg. Moistens the dough and helps to bind it together.
Instructions
Make the dough.
- In a medium sized saucepan, melt the butter, brown sugar and golden syrup over medium heat, until melted and smooth.
- Remove from the heat and add the flour, vanilla extract and salt. Use a whisk if needed to smooth out any lumps of flour.
- Stir in the oats, then let the mixture cool for 10 minutes. Stir in the egg.
Bake the Cookies
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Line several baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Use a small cookie scoop to scoop 1 tablespoon sized dollops of the dough onto the baking sheet, leaving 3-4 inches between each so they have plenty of room to spread. Use the back of a spoon to flatten the dollops of dough against the baking sheet.
- Bake one pan of cookies at a time, baking the cookies for about 9-10 minutes. The cookies will spread and become very thin, the edges should be a deep golden brown color, and you should see the sugar bubbling around the edges. At 9 minutes, the cookies will be crisp around the edges, while the centers will remain chewy and a little bendy after they’ve cooled. Bake for 1-2 minutes longer if you want crispier cookies, but watch them closely to make sure the sugar doesn’t burn.
- If you want perfectly round cookies, use a round cookie cutter with a circumference that’s larger than the cookies to quickly “scoot” it around the hot cookies, pulling in any uneven edges.
- Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for at least 5 minutes, or until you can easily peel them off the paper and set them on a cooling rack to cool completely. While one pan of cookies is cooling, you can bake the other pan.
- These cookies are wonderful plain, but can also be paired with chocolate for a decadent treat. Melt some semi sweet chocolate, then dip, drizzle or sandwich the cookies with the chocolate.
Be sure to read all of my BAKING FAQs where I discuss ingredients, substitutions and common baking questions, so that you can be successful in your own baking!
Frequently Asked Questions
Store the cooled cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3-5 days, or in the freezer for up to 3-6 months.
I recommend using old fashioned rolled oats. Quick cooking oats may also work, but since they’re ground more finely, the texture of your cookies will be a little different. Instant oats and steel cut oats cannot be used.
Golden syrup (or light treacle) is similar in consistency to other syrups like light or dark corn syrup, so you can use either of those in this recipe as well. You may also be able to use honey or pure maple syrup with good results.
Since there’s so little flour used as a binder, you can likely use a variety of starches, measure-for-measure gluten free flour or even almond flour without affecting the recipe much. I have not tested any of these substitutions, though.
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High Altitude Oatmeal Lace Cookies
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter
- ¾ cup light or dark brown sugar, lightly packed
- 1 tbsp golden syrup
- 2 tbsp all purpose flour
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- 1 ½ cups old fashioned rolled oats
- 1 large egg, room temperature, lightly beaten
Instructions
- In a medium sized saucepan, melt the butter, brown sugar and golden syrup over medium heat, until melted and smooth.
- Remove from the heat and add the flour, vanilla extract and salt. Use a whisk if needed to smooth out any lumps of flour.
- Stir in the oats, then let the mixture cool for 10 minutes. Stir in the egg.
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Line several baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Use a small cookie scoop to scoop 1 tablespoon sized dollops of the dough onto the baking sheet, leaving 3-4 inches between each so they have plenty of room to spread. Use the back of a spoon to flatten the dollops of dough against the baking sheet.
- Bake one pan of cookies at a time, baking the cookies for about 9-10 minutes. The cookies will spread and become very thin, the edges should be a deep golden brown color, and you should see the sugar bubbling around the edges.Baker's Note: At 9 minutes, the cookies will be crisp around the edges, while the centers will remain chewy and a little bendy after they've cooled. Bake for 1-2 minutes longer if you want crispier cookies, but watch them closely to make sure the sugar doesn't burn.
- If you want perfectly round cookies, use a round cookie cutter with a circumference that's larger than the cookies to quickly "scoot" it around the hot cookies, pulling in any uneven edges.
- Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for at least 5 minutes, or until you can easily peel them off the paper and set them on a cooling rack to cool completely. While one pan of cookies is cooling, you can bake the other pan.
- These cookies are wonderful plain, but can also be paired with chocolate for a decadent treat. Melt some semi sweet chocolate, then dip, drizzle or sandwich the cookies with the chocolate.
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