Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Here is another one for Dessert Week!  I love oatmeal raisin cookies.  Maybe it is because I, in a way, trick myself into the idea that I am eating a “healthy” food, I mean it has raisins and oatmeal just like a good granola does, right, right?  And Jacob really enjoyed how these turned out, not an undercooked softness or a gingersnap breaking cookie, but a cookie with a crunchy oatmeal with still-soft raisins, perfect!

Ingredients

  • 1 cup (1/2 pound or 2 sticks)  butter, softened
  • 1 cup brown sugar, packed
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 2 large eggs, well beaten
  • 1 Tbsp vanilla
  • 3 cups rolled oats (not instant)
  • 1 1/2 cups raisins

Bake at 350 F for 10-12 minutes.  A while in the freezer with some extra baking soda gives the cookies a bit more shape, but more flour might also help the problem.  (I put the balls out on a metal pan right after I put the stoneware cookie sheet in the oven. Then just filled the partially cooled stoneware with some more chilled cookies for the next batch.  Some more time in the freezer might have been good, but I don’t need to save some for more batches, this is a small enough batch on its own.)

Elise, the blogger who shared this recipe, reminds us: do not overbake these cookies. The edges should be brown, but the rest of the cookie should be very light in color.

The nutmeg was a bit strong.  I’m learning that although I enjoy nutmeg, it can really take over your tastebuds if its ratio is too high in a recipe, I’ll cut it in half the next time I bake these wonderfully scrumptious cookies.

I found this recipe at Simple Recipes.  But I found another one as well, and would love to make this cookie with an applesauce base by David Lebovitz.

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies

Welcome to Dessert Week!  In celebration of my husband’s birthday this Friday I will be sharing some of his (and my) favorite recipes all week long.

I’ll start off with one we made for the first time last night.  I got the recipe out of the 1981 Deseret Recipes.  I really like this book because it gives me simple ideas, not all the convoluted 25-ingredient recipes of other books.  This is mainly a food-storage and simple vegetables kind of book.  I made the peanut butter oatmeal cookies. The following is the recipe cut into thirds (it originally made “9 dozen” cookies, we are only 2 people, have mercy!)

Ingredients:

  • 1 stick of softened margarine or 1/2 C soft shortening
  • 1/3 C granulated white sugar
  • 1/2 C brown sugar, packed
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 C peanut butter
  • 1 C all-purpose flour (actually 1 1/6, so a heaping cup?)
  • 2/3 t baking soda (again, eyeball more than a half teaspoon)
  • 1/4 t salt
  • 2/3 C oatmeal, uncooked

Beat first set of ingredients until smooth, then beat in the egg and peanut butter one at a time.  Now add the flour and its buddies.  And finally add the oatmeal.

Bake at 350 F for 12 to 15 minutes.

I loved plopping these cookies, the batter was held together nicely by the peanut butter.  However, this also resulted in a sort of dry cookie, but we both concluded they were perfect with a glass of milk!  Jacob had the same luck when he scraped them off, nice and clean.  Maybe I need to add more flour to my other cookie recipes, since they are always so flat and sticky.  Jacob agrees we should make them again, so one more recipe on the favorites list.