The Best Oatmeal Raisin Cookies Ever

I've made a handful of oatmeal raisin cookies over the years, since that's my favorite kind, find recipes everywhere from cookbooks to the top of an oatmeal container. But these are my all-time favorite, adapted from bits here and bits there, and tested many times over.

Ingredients:
1 stick butter
1/2 c. sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 c. white flour
1/2 c. whole wheat flour
3/4 c. rolled oats
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 c. raisins
 


Directions:
Preheat oven to 375.
Cream butter in a large mixing bowl.
Gradually add sugar and cream into butter.
Add egg and vanilla and mix well.
In a separate bowl, mix flours, baking soda and cinnamon.
Add to butter mixture and mix well.
Add oatmeal and raisins and mix well.
Form into cookies of desired size on a buttered or nonstick cookie sheet.
Bake 10-12 minutes.

Coconut Cookies

 Ingredients:

• 1 stick butter
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 1 1/4 c. flour (I used 3/4 whole wheat, 1/2 white)
• 1 tbsp. milk/cream
• 1/4 tsp. baking powder 
• 1/2 c. finely shredded coconut

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Cream butter, then add sugar, beating until light
3. Add vanilla, egg, milk and mix thoroughly
4. Mix flour and baking powder, then add to butter mixture and stir to combine
5. Stir in coconut 
6. Arrange by on a cookie sheet and bake 8-12 minutes until golden brown on edges.

 These were pretty good, a basic cookie, a bit plain for me, but good enough. My son liked them and we all ate them in a few days, so they were a success overall. If I made them again, I'd add some spices and maybe raisins to make them more interesting.

Butterscotch Brownies aka Blondies

I made these as an alternative to the regular chocolate brownies. I did alter the recipe a lot. I didn't have brown sugar, so I used regular sugar and molasses. I also cut the recipe in half, because I wasn't sure how much I'd like them. Then I cut the sugar in half again, since it seemed really sugary. And I left out the baking powder in Fannie's recipe, because I don't like fluffy brownies. I like them moist and chewy. And these turned out pretty fluffy anyway.

Batter going in the oven.

Here's what I used:
1/4 c. butter (1/2 stick)
1/2 c. organic sugar, plus 1/2 tsp. molasses
1 egg
1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1/4 c. white flour
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 c. chopped walnuts

Golden and slightly shiny on top.

• Preheat oven to 350.
• Butter an 8x8 baking pan.
• Melt butter in saucepan, then add other ingredients, stirring to combine thoroughly.
• Spread in pan and bake 25 minutes or until dry on top and almost firm to touch.
• Let cool, then cut into squares.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

What can be more classic than a chocolate chip cookie?

These are classic chocolate chip cookies, whether you use nuts or oatmeal or neither. I used oatmeal, since I had some on hand and didn't have any nuts. If you haven't realized by now, I'm a big believer in using ingredients that are already in the kitchen. I rarely go out and buy a special ingredient for a recipe, and almost never buy one I don't think I'll use up or use again (the only exception I can think of is cream of tartar, which I did end up using one more time after I bought it for snickerdoodles).

Anyhoo, on with the recipe.
 

Use hubby to cream butter.

Ingredients:

• 1 stick butter
• 1/2 c. dark brown sugar (I used only 1/4)
• 1/2 c. white sugar (Again, 1/4)
• 1 egg
• 3/4 tsp. vanilla
• 1 1/8 c. flour (I used 1/2 c. white, the rest whole wheat)
• 1/2 tsp. salt (I always leave this out, since I can't stand the taste of salt in cookies)
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 c. chopped nuts (or oatmeal, if making chocolate chip oatmeal cookies)
• 1 c. chocolate chips (I used 1/2 c. mixed dark/milk/butterscotch chips)

I altered this recipe, but I stayed truer this time than I usually do. I have adapted this recipe over the years to make my favorite oatmeal raisin cookies in the world, but the recipe is so altered I don't think it would be recognizable. This time, I tried to stay fairly close to the recipe. 

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375. Cream butter, gradually add sugars until smooth. Beat in egg and vanilla. Mix flour & baking soda and add it to wet mix, blending well. Stir in oatmeal/nuts and chocolate chips. Put on greased cookie sheet and bake 8-10 minutes or until browning at edges.

Before & after.

These turned out really well. My son said they were his favorite cookies now. And even though he'd probably be ecstatic if I gave him a bowl of sugar and a spoon for dessert, he said these were just a little too sweet (and this was after I cut the sugar AND the chocolate chips in half). So, they were plenty sweet. The flour mix was just right so they weren't too heavy. I put them in for 10 minutes, and they were just a little too brown for my liking, but still very good. Next time I'll only use 8 minutes if I'm using a gas oven, which seems to run a little hotter than the electric one I'm used to.

These cookies are easy and delicious, a classic recipe that should be in everyone's repertoire.





PS, the answer to the first question is...Nothing!

Icebox Cookies

It seems like most people either like to cook, or they like to bake. People who like to bake, more often than not, have a sweet tooth. Which explains why I like to bake. One of my all-time favorite recipes is one I adapted from Fannie Farmer a few years ago to make oatmeal raisin cookies.

This time, I went with a different recipe to make refrigerator cookies (ones that you put in a roll in the fridge and then slice off thin slices to bake).

I love these crumbling old pages!

Here's the recipe:

Cream:
1/2 c. butter
1 tsp. vanilla
Beat in:
2/3 c. brown sugar
1/3 c. white sugar
1 egg
Sift together & add to first mixture:
1 1/2 c. flour
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
1/4 tsp. salt

Bake at 250 for 15 minutes or 400 for 5 minutes.

I'd never made these before and I wanted to experiment some. It says to vary them, add chocolate chips, nuts, raisins, coconut, spices, etc. So...I did.

I added black walnuts, 1/2 c. coconut, a handful of raisins, almond extract, and nutmeg. All this made the flavor very good. What didn't make them good...

My mom had some ground flour she needed to use up. So she told me to use it. It turned out to be a mixture of millet, quinoa, and spelt. I used 1 c. of that and 1/2 c. organic white flour. They were a very strange texture! I recommend 1 c. whole wheat instead. That gives cookies more body and flavor than plain white flour, so I usually use a mixture of whole wheat and white. I wouldn't recommend the odd mixture of flours I used! Also, these cookies are very sweet. I used only 1/2 c. xylitol in place of the 1 c. sugars, and they were still *very* sweet. I had to drink milk to calm down the sweetness.

Overall impressions: My sister said they tasted like cornbread (I blame the millet flour), my mom liked the flavor, my son said they were weird. I think I'll try again with wheat flour.

For more epic fails on my part, some by my own experimentation and some from following the recipe, see my Disaster Chef blog posts.