Post by Alison Hein.

Many (many) years ago, I entered a Girl Scout cookie contest and won! The winner was a sugary, crisped-edge, frilly concoction called a lace cookie. A wispy memory of brown sugar and beaten egg whites returned to my mind recently, and I decided to hunt for the recipe and recreate the magic.

The faded cookbooks of my youth have titles like Cookie Cookbook and The Cookie Book, and I know exactly where to find them. I flipped confidently through the first one, and there it was – Lace Cookies.

The recipe was different from my memory (where was the brown sugar? Where were the egg whites?), but that didn’t trouble me overmuch. I was puzzled when I was instructed to have on hand 2 cups oatmeal – surely that meant to cook the oats first? This didn’t seem right at all – should I make oatmeal? Use rolled oats? So I checked in with my sister, Janet. She agreed, the oats should be cooked. She also agreed that she did not remember oats in the original lace cookie recipe.

Still, I forged ahead valiantly. Everything was coming together nicely, until the cookies came out of the oven.

They looked all right, but would not be removed from the pan without balling into a squidgly mess. They even tasted okay, but required eating with a spoon.

They were a real mess and I had to toss them. But by this time, I liked the idea of adding oats, even though they were lacking from my original memory. I changed the recipe up a bit more, using brown sugar instead of only white, adding vanilla extract and an extra egg. This time, they slid sweetly from the pan, and were adorned with a tiny crisp of lacy edge (aided by melted butter and no flour in the batter). The rolled oats turned to autumn gold – sweet breakfast in bed bites.

P.S. If you have a great recipe for Lace Cookies, please send it to me.

Ingredients

2 cups rolled oats
1 stick (½ cup) butter, melted
½ cup brown sugar
¼ cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350°.

Place rolled oats into large bowl. Melt butter in a small, heavy saucepan over medium low heat. When melted, stir into rolled oats until evenly mixed. Stir in brown sugar and white sugar. Add eggs and vanilla and mix well.

Drop by rounded teaspoonful onto lightly greased cookie sheet, leaving about 1½ inches between cookies to allow for spreading. Bake 10 to 12 minutes, until golden brown and crisped on the bottom. Let cool on cookie sheet for one to two minutes before removing to cool fully on a wire rack.

Makes about 4 dozen cookies.