Oatmeal Rasin Cookies

Oatmeal Rasin Cookies Recipe

[ photo of cookies ]


Let's start with the recipe itself.

[ photo of original recipe ]

The date on the lower right of this card reveals how many years I have been making these great tasting cookies.


Here's the stuff that goes into making them all laid out on the counter top.

[ photo of ingredients ]

Having everything in front of me means that I won't forget anything. After adding the ingredient I put it away in the cupboard. That way I know what is left to be added. Just a little technique that has served me well over the years.

Start by adding the dry things into the mixing bowl - except oats, coconut and raisins, they get added LAST.

[ photo of dry stuff in mixing bowl ]

• 1 cup        flour
• 1/2 cup     granulated sugar
• 1 cup        brown sugar
• 1 tsp         salt
• 1/2 tsp      baking soda
• 1 tsp         vanilla

Once all of the dry things above are added it's time to stir things up until they are combined fairly well.

[ photo of stirred dry ingredients ]

Some lumps of brown sugar will be present here but that's OK.

Next add the egg.

[ photo of egg in mixing bowl ]

• 1 egg

Cover the egg with the dry stuff so you don't get wet egg stuck to your mixing spoon, you'll end up with a huge clump stuck to it. Stir until the egg has been taken up by all of the dry ingredients.

[ photo of mixed dry ingredients and egg ]

Next add the water, about 1 tbsp at a time, and then stir after each addition. This will start by creating lots of lumps. Slowly the lumps will get bigger until it is one single lump stuck to the bottom of the mixing bowl.

[ photo of ingredients after adding water ]

• 1/4 cup water

The mixture right now is fairly stiff or it should be.

At this point I have experimented with adding more or less water. More water will loosen up the batter and make it easier to stir the oats, coconut and raisins. But out of the oven the cookies will be very thin and they won't stay soft and chewy for very long.

Next add the shortening.

[ photo of shortening being measured ]

• 3/4 cup vegetable shortening

[ photo of shortening in mixing bowl ]

Stir the shortening into the mixture until you can't see any more white lumps. This also loosens up the batter making it easier to stir - yet another reason to not add more water to the batter.

[ photo of batter after adding shortening ]

Next add the oats - 1 cup at a time, stir after adding each cup.

[ photo of oats added to mixing bowl ] 

• 3 cups old fashioned Quaker Oats

 
Next add the shredded coconut. Stir well to mix in thoroughly.
(I skip this step as of 2015, it adds too much sodium)

[ photo of shredded coconut added to mixing bowl ]

• 1 cup shredded coconut

Next add the raisins. Stir well to mix in thoroughly.

[ photo of raisins added to mixing bowl ]

• 1 cup Sunkist Raisins

That finishes up the cookie dough. It's ready to be baked in the oven.

[ photo of finished cookie dough ]

The oven should be preheated to 350 F.
Cookie dough should be placed on a greased cookie sheet using a tablespoon.

[ photo of cookie dough on sheet ]

I know...this isn't greased...and it isn't a cookie sheet...but it is the way I have been doing it since 2001 and it works very well. Why? My home is powered by solar electricity and cannot use my conventional electric oven, so I use a toaster oven instead.

Yeah, 5 cookies at a time. It takes 2 hours to bake the whole batch, about 30-35 cookies total when done. I sit on the sofa and read between batches in the toaster oven. It works for me. Relaxing. Nice way to spend a couple hours on Sunday. Check out the photo gallery if you want to see the toaster oven in action and how many watts it draws on my battery bank.

[ photo of finished baked cookies on foil sheet ]

Next put them into a storage container like this. I have found that leaving the cookies stuck to the aluminum foil like this helps to keep them moist and chewy longer. Sweet!

[ photo of cookies in storage container ]

There you have it. Oatmeal raisin cookies to delight anyone!

A couple of notes on recipe changes

1 - I use Morton Light Salt, 1 tsp. One half the sodium content of regular salt.
2 - I skip adding shredded coconut. This added 480 mg sodium to the batch.

These two items greatly reduce sodium content in the cookies. This is something I learned that should be taken seriously by everyone. And how do they taste with these changes? They taste great and I think a little chewier without the coconut. Nice!

Original recepie sodium:    120 mg sodium, per cookie
Modified recepie sodium:     43 mg sodium, per cookie



Photo Gallery
Making Cookies



Gregg Scholfield    2015-05-27