I’ve only recently come around to oatmeal as a viable meal in itself — the steel-cut variety really helped with this new revelation — but I’ve been using old-fashioned rolled oats in baking for years. The heartiness of oats is just so perfect when combined with butter and sugar. Just … mmf. So perfect.

Oatmeal raisin cookies are common, as are oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I’ve seen oatmeal cookies made with maple syrup as a kind of play on a breakfast option, and I myself have heightened a pretty standard oatmeal cookie recipe using honey almond butter. But why is it so hard to find oats in chocolate cookies?

It’s not impossible. But it’s also not something you see very often. And there’s really no reason for that. Oatmeal and chocolate is incredible together; why wouldn’t it be incredible together in a cookie?

I whipped these up pretty fast. They’re not the prettiest to look at, and I could probably spend more time perfecting this recipe … but I had a pretty limited amount of ingredients in my cabinet at the time, and I thought these did incredibly well in a pinch to satisfy my need for gooey sweet chocolate oatmeal nonsense. Do you have an amazing chocolate-oatmeal-type recipe? Tell me about it … I need to explore this delightful combo in more depth!

CHOCOLATE OATMEAL COOKIES

• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 large or extra-large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups rolled oats

Whisk the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt together in a small bowl and set the bowl aside. In a separate bowl, beat together the butter and sugars until combined, about three minutes or so. Add the egg, mixing until incorporated and scraping down the sides of the bowl. Then add the vanilla, keeping the mixer going. Add the flour mixture a bit at a time until everything is combined. Don’t overmix! Then stir in the oats. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and throw it in the fridge for half an hour to an hour while your oven preheats to 375 degrees.

After the dough’s firmed up a bit and your oven’s ready to go, take the dough out of the fridge and drop rounded tablespoonfuls onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes and let them cool.