Oatmeal Lace Cookies

Thin and crispy oatmeal lace cookies can seem magical if you have never made them before, but they are actually very simple.

Just melt sugar and butter, and then add the oats and flour to make a thin batter. Don’t be scared of how thin it seems!

The cookies spread and caramelize in the oven, creating a thin and crispy network of sugar that's just substantial enough to hold the oats together.

I use thick-cut rolled oats because I think they give more "bite" and substance to the cookies. Look for thick-cut oats in both the cereal section and the baking section - I like Bob's Red Mill oats, personally. It's fine to substitute regular rolled oats if you have trouble finding the thick-cut, though instant or quick-cooking oats might make the cookies too fragile. (But let me know if you try them and what you think!)

When you're melting the butter and sugar together, you don't need to worry about cooking it, checking the sugar temperature, or anything so fussy. You only need to heat them long enough to melt the butter and dissolve the sugar.

Stir a few times as this is happening to make sure the butter and sugar are melting evenly. It's ready when you have a thick brown paste. Also, it's fine if you see some streaks or puddles of separated butter; the butter and sugar don't need to fully combine for this recipe to work.

The other secret to making this cookies is to spread the batter into a thin layer on the baking sheet so the cookies bake evenly.

If you just pile the cookie batter in heaping spoonfuls, the center of the cookie will be thicker than the edges and the cookies won't become fully crispy. You want an even distribution of oats and a thin layer of batter to create the crispy, lacy magic.