I received some excellent input from my friends about what an oatmeal raisin cookie should be like. The only universally loved quality seems to be a chewy center with crisp edges. Desired spice levels, sweetness, nut inclusion/exclusion, and overall healthiness vary.
Since my standard menu of cookies will probably look something like this - chocolate chip, snickerdoodle, peanut butter, oatmeal raisin, ginger - I think I do need to include walnuts in the oatmeal raisin cookie. Some people really love nuts. Folks who hate them can either pick a different cookie (the chocolate chip cookies will be nut-free) or pre-order a special batch without walnuts. Also, I feel that if you're looking for a healthy cookie, maybe you shouldn't eat a cookie. I'll try it with applesauce for some of the fat, but only because I feel like that could lead to good flavor and texture for this particular cookie. If full fat tastes better, so be it. Since there will be a ginger cookie - and likely a highly spiced one - I will aim for mild cinammon in the oatmeal raisin cookie. As with all my cookies, it will not be too sweet, and it will be small.
For chewiness, I'll try melted butter (rather than creamed butter and sugar) and brown sugar. For crispiness (on the edges), I'll be sure to include some white sugar. The walnuts shall be toasted so they taste awesome. The raisins shall be soaked in some sort of hot liquid so they're plump. Maybe orange juice.
My first trial recipe
Ingredients
3/4 cup raisins
juice of one lemon (couple tbsp, at least)
hot water (enough to cover the raisins)
4 oz (1 stick) butter
3.5 oz (1/2 cup) brown sugar
3.5 oz (1/2 cup) granulated sugar
2 oz (1/2 cup) walnuts, chopped
3.75 oz (3/4 cup) all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups rolled oats (not instant)
Steps
- Boil the water, pour the lemon juice over the raisins, and then pour enough hot water over the raisins to cover (in a shallow bowl). Let stand while preparing the rest of the dough.
- Melt the butter. Once melted, combine it with the sugars in a large bowl. Stir and let stand.
- Toast the walnuts in a dry skillet over medium low heat until they smell really good. Don't burn them.
- Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in a medium bowl.
- Once the butter/sugar mixture is no longer hot to the touch (warm is OK), add the egg and vanilla and stir to combine.
- Dump the flour mixture into the butter mixture and stir well to combine. Squeeze the liquid out of the raisins before adding them to the dough. Add the oatmeal and walnuts and stir everything well to combine.
- Put the bowl in the freezer while you pre-heat the oven to 350° F. Good time for some cleaning, checking email, petting cats, or whatever you like.
- Use a #40 portioner to drop dough onto parchment-lined baking sheets. Flatten gently with the palm of your hand. Bake for 10 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through. You want to see light browning on just the edges of the cookies. Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack as soon as the cookies are firm enough to move.
Results
I tried the first pan exactly as written. They came out very soft and flat and had to cool almost completely on the pan before they were strong enough to move. They still fell apart quite readily the next day.
For the second pan, I did not flatten the dough, and I baked for 12 minutes instead of 10. These held together a bit better - I was able to transfer them to a rack after maybe 3 minutes - but they were still too crumbly. There was more browning on these cookies from the longer bake time, but not flattening them out led to inconsistent shapes. I was worried that they would be hard when cool, but this wasn't the case.
Both versions had excellent flavor and the right level of sweetness, but they were soft all the way through and did not hold together.
Tasters remarks were 80% enthusiastically positive. The only real feedback I got had to do with the crumbliness and lack of any crispiness. One person said she'd have liked more cinnamon.
This recipe was a good start, but I'm going to make the following changes to the next attempt:
- Increase ratio of white to brown sugar in an effort to get crisp edges.
- Increase amount of flour and stir longer to develop gluten and hopefully help the cookies stay together better.
- Increase cinnamon.
