Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
Old Fashioned Baking: Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
I am often torn between wanting to bake “fancy” things and wanting to bake comfort foods from my childhood. Fancy things include macarons, French pastries, croissants. Comfort foods include brownies, layer cakes, and cookies – the old-fashioned kind like chocolate chip and these oatmeal raisin cookies.
Oatmeal Raisin Cookies: Practically a Health Food!
When I was a kid, oatmeal raisin cookies were what I baked when we didn’t have anything fun in the house like chocolate. It was a sort of getting by type of dessert. Today, I really enjoy them and somehow feel a little virtuous eating something that, at least as I perceive it, is good for me with its fiber and fruit. It’s practically a health food!
A Simple, Old-Fashioned Treat
For the most part, I set aside this desire to make complicated, “sophisticated” desserts and give in to nostalgia. These oatmeal raisin cookies really check all the nostalgia boxes: simple, hearty, old-fashioned.
Basic Ingredients
The ingredients aren’t anything fancy. You probably have most of them on hand. Personally I keep a big plastic container of old-fashioned oats on hand for these cookies and for granola, so I can make them at any time. I also have a good supply of raisins for breakfast oatmeal. And while the addition to these cookies is raisins, you can also add other things like chocolate chips or butterscotch chips. I think even peanut butter chips might do well.
Oatmeal Raisin Cookies Require No Chilling
Butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, eggs, vanilla, and cinnamon, as well as flour and baking soda make up the ingredients other than the oatmeal and raisins. Mix everything up thoroughly and drop them onto a lined baking sheet. One of the other great parts of this recipe is that you don’t need to chill the dough. When there are cookies involved, I have remarkably little patience waiting for hours while the dough chills.
Bake What You Love
I doubt I will resolve the struggle between fancy baking and nostalgic baking anytime soon, but while I ponder which I prefer, these cookies will remain a favorite.
Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 2 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 cup butter softened
- 1/2 cup brown sugar packed
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 cup raisins
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats.
- In a mixing bowl, whisk together the flour and baking soda. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy, about two minutes.
- Add the eggs one at a time, mixing until each is incorporated.
- Add in the vanilla and the cinnamon and mix briefly.
- Add the flour mixture to the butter and sugar blend. Mix until incorporated. Be sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl with a spatula.
- Beat in the oatmeal in two separate additions.
- Scrape the bottom and sides to be sure everything is combined.
- Mix in the raisins using either a large spoon or, gently, with the mixer.
- Using a cookie scoop, drop the dough onto the prepared trays leaving approximately two inches between each. You can use a tablespoon if you don't have a scoop.
- Bake until golden, about 11 minutes. I generally bake two trays at a time, reversing them midway through baking (i.e, the top tray to the bottom, the bottom to the top).
