Helpful Tips to Make Cookies on a Griddle or Electric Skillet
There is nothing nicer on a cold winters day than a freshly baked batch of cookies. What a picture perfect scene of mama standing by the stove handing out cookies to her children. However, whenever I used to bake cookies, there would be so many that we would never get through them. It’s not worth turning on a big oven, to make only a few cookies. No one wants to heat up the whole house with the heat of the oven an a hot summers day to produce a few cookies. Wouldn’t it be much simpler if we could simply make cookies as required on the hob? I decided to try my hand at baking cookies on a griddle, the way my grandmother used to.
Can you bake cookies on a griddle?
Griddles are not just for making breakfast. Scones, pancakes, muffins, biscuits and cookies can easily be baked using a griddle on top of the stove. The greatest advantage of baking cookies on the griddle is their beautiful crisp crust and luscious soft centre, cookies just cannot be cooked to this level of perfection in an oven. Electric griddles can also be used to great effect to make sure that warm cookies are always available to make both children and adults whoop with delight.
How to make cookies on a griddle
The beauty of using the griddle on top of the stove is that you can see what you are doing, you are in control of the heat at all times. It’s easier to rotate your cookies when heating on a griddle, ensuring that they are heated evenly. You are the master of the flame and learning to bake using the stove really is empowering for any cook.
Griddles can also be used outside with charcoal and gas barbecues, it is often difficult to know what to serve for desert at a barbecue without resorting to baking something inside in the oven. Cookies are the perfect solution cooked on the griddle over the hot coals.
Perhaps you have a wood burner and enjoy roasting marshmallows at Halloween, what a novelty to swap the marshmallows for griddle cooked cookies. I often hand out freshly backed mini cookies to trick or treaters which I cook on a griddle on my front porch fire-pit. This creates a wonderful community atmosphere and the children just love their little bags being filled with home-made cookies.
Easy Griddle Cookies Recipes
Don’t worry about cookies being difficult to make, or think for one moment that using a griddle to cook them over complicated things, quite the opposite. In my experience, using a griddle to make cookies is the easier option. Far less cleaning up to do and you are completely in control of the temperature and aware of every change in the colour and texture of the dough as it gently cooks.
The children can join in to, and they love watching them cook, which with even the fanciest of ovens with the clearest glass door, is just never really possible. I’m really quite sure, that if Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster was baking his own cookies, he would most certainly use a griddle rather than an oven.
Ingredients:
3½ cups. all purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1½ tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
Butter, softened (unsalted)
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 cup. milk
1 cup raisins
Method:
1. Stir dry ingredients together into bowl.
2. Rub in the butter until mixture is mealy.
3. Beat eggs and then add milk slowly, mixing as you go.
4. Add the dry mix into the bowl with egg and milk.
5. Stir until all the ingredients are moistened and dough holds together.
6. On a lightly floured board, roll your dough to 1/4 inch thickness.
7. Cut with 2 inch round cookie cutter.
8. Meanwhile Heat the griddle to around 350 degrees.
9. Add a little butter to the hot griddle.
10. Add cookie dough to griddle.
11. Cook for 5 minutes on each side, until cookies are lightly browned.
Serve warm.
Electric skillet cookies
An electric skillet is a great addition to the kitchen. They heat more easily than a pan on a stove and are very versatile. Searing meat is straightforward in an electric skillet and they are great for baking. In order to bake cookies in an electric skillet, you need to put down a wire rack, otherwise they will quickly burn on the bottom. Make sure you flatten down the cookie dough and small cookies work better in an electric skillet. I use my electric skillet to best effect when I am on caravan holidays. I just find it so much easier to manage, than the oven. Like the griddle, it’s so much nicer to clean than that big oven. I also use my electric griddle (skillet) on pancake day at school with my pupils. They are so transportable that there are at least a million ways of using them to great effect.
Ingredients
1 egg
3 1/2 cups sifted flour
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 cup milk
1 cup chocolate chips
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 stick unsalted butter (8 tablespoons)
Method
1. Stir dry ingredients together into bowl.
2. Beat eggs and then add milk slowly, mixing as you go.
3. Add the dry mix into the bowl with egg and milk.
4. Stir until all the ingredients are moistened and dough holds together.
5. On a lightly floured board, roll your dough to 1/4 inch thickness.
6. Cut with 2 inch round cookie cutter.
7. Meanwhile Heat a lightly oiled baking tray on a wire rack in the electric skillet
8. Put cookies on warmed baking tray.
9. Cook for 5 minutes, or until cookies are lightly browned.
10. Turn the cookies over to brown other side. (Approximately 5 mins)
Best served warm.
The leftover dough can be stored in the fridge or frozen, so that cookies can be made fresh whenever you fancy.
Raisin griddle cookies
These cookies are particularly good in the winter. Nothing beats sitting down with a warm glass of milk or eggnog and a freshly baked cookie by a crackling log fire at Christmas time. These are also a delicious treat to bake with children and leave out for Santa on Christmas Eve or to include with gifts for relatives, friends and class teachers. At Christmas time, I add in a teaspoon of cinnamon to the cookie mix. The smell of them cooking is simply sublime.
Ingredients
2 cups plain flour
1/4 brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
200g butter
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup milk
Method
1. Stir dry ingredients together into bowl.
2. Mix together softened butter and milk in a small pan over a low heat
3. Add the dry ingredients into the pan with the butter and milk and mix together.
4. Stir until all the ingredients are moistened and dough holds together.
6. Make into 2 inch patties and flatten down with a spatula
7. Meanwhile Heat a lightly oiled griddle
8. Put cookies on warmed baking tray.
9. Cook for 3 minutes each side or until cookies are lightly browned.
Serve warm
Welsh griddle cookies
Baking on griddles is a great tradition in Wales. There they use a bakestone, which is a type of heavy cast iron griddle. Traditionally, these griddles were placed on open fires and baking was done in front of the family in the living area of the home. Generations later and the tradition of using griddles for baking lives on in Wales. These cookies certainly taste traditional and you will quickly become skilled at making them. The beauty of griddle cookies is that the dough can be made in advance and stored in the fridge, or even the freezer and used as required. You could make up enough to last for several months and whenever guests call by unexpectedly you will be able to rustle up fresh baking. Of course, such culinary skills will do nothing to stop guests calling by ad hoc. but you will gain a reputation as a wonderful hostess.
Ingredients
3 Cups plain flour
1 Cup granulated sugar,
2 tsp baking powder
Grated orange zest
1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp fine salt
115g unsalted butter, cold and diced, plus more for cooking
1 Cup currants
2 large eggs, slightly beaten
2 to 3 tbsp buttermilk
Melted butter, for cooking
Method
1. Mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder orange, nutmeg and salt.
2. Rub in the butter until mixture is mealy.
3. Add in currants.
4. Beat eggs and buttermilk together.
5. Stir dry mix to eggs and buttermilk to make a dough.
6. Roll dough on a lightly floured surface to ¼ inch thickness.
7. Cut with 2 inch round cookie cutter.
8. Meanwhile Heat the griddle to around 350 degrees.
9. Add a little butter to the hot griddle.
10. Add cookie dough to griddle.
11. Cook for 5 minutes on each side, until cookies are lightly browned.
Serve warm.
Oatmeal griddle cookies
Nothing speaks of an old fashioned comfort food like an oatmeal cookie. I believe that this would have been the type of food the three bears would have eaten deep in the forest in place of porridge. I recommend making these on a camping trip, using a griddle with a camp stove. Sitting round the fire on a fall evening with a flask of tea and an oatmeal cookie cooked outdoors is the type of memory your children will cherish forever, perhaps even passing the tradition on to their own children and grandchildren.
Ingredients
1½ cups porridge oats,
½ cup chopped almonds
½ teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
Salt to taste
1 cup low-fat vanilla Greek Yogurt
1 egg
1 tablespoon coconut oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup finely chopped blueberries
Method
1. In a food processor or blender, pulse 1 cup of oats until finely ground, resembling flour.
2. Combine oats, almonds, cinnamon, baking soda and salt.
3. In a separate bowl, mix together yogurt, egg, coconut oil, and vanilla.
4. Stir dry mix to eggs and yoghurt mix to make a dough.
5. Separate dough out and make patties, using a spatula to flatten them.
6. Meanwhile Heat the griddle to around 350 degrees.
7. Add a little butter to the hot griddle.
8. Add patties to griddle.
9. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes on each side, until cookies are lightly browned and warmed through.
Serve warm.
Cookies are magical, and I think they are all the more special when cooked on a griddle, whether that’s an electric griddle, over a stove or outdoors on a campfire or barbecue; there really is nothing more comforting than a cookie.
Cookies are so versatile they can be enjoyed with hot drinks in the winter as a comforting treat to warm the cockles or with a cocktail and ice cream on a summers evening. Cookies can be stored in airtight containers and kept fresh for up to five days, ideal for baking as gift for grand-parents, neighbours and teachers.
Cookie dough can be made in advance and kept always at the ready for guests. The griddle is so much better than the oven for making sure cookies have both a beautiful crispy exterior and remain soft and chewy on the inside, but my favourite thing about using the griddle over the oven, is that it’s so much easier to clean. Please share this post and write a comment below, share your own magical griddle cookie recipes.
The Joy of Cookies (Origin of Cookies)
The word cookie comes from the Dutch word koekje and means “small” or “little cake”. Historians believe that cookies have been around since the 7th century in Persia when the use of sugar became more common in cooking. Recipes for cookies spread throughout Europe as a result of the Muslim conquest of Spain and by the fourteenth century, they were very common in all both rich and poor households . As exploring became more popular, cookies became the ideal travelling food, staying fresh for long periods of time. They were easy to transport and under the right conditions could be eaten for years after they were baked. The fact that cookies were the food of travellers, perhaps explains in part why they have become synonymous with American culture these days.
