I love oatmeal raisin cookies. They remind me of my childhood and my grandma.
She made the best oatmeal raisin cookies.
And not just the best oatmeal raisin cookies, but she made the best cookies, period.
I have no idea what recipe she used for her oatmeal raisin cookies. There probably was no recipe. She was legally blind and wrote nothing down.
Writing things down would have been futile anyway because the next time she would have gone to look at it, she likely couldn’t have read it.
She cooked by feel.
She’d feel the dough, and then make tweaks.
In one sense, no two batches of anything were ever exactly same, yet they were always familiar, similar, and nearly the same.
Pretty impressive for a woman who stored all recipes in her gray matter and rarely used measuring cups.
Her preferred method of storage was Folger’s Coffee cans. Both for cookies and everything else. From precious gold, jewelry, or cash. Just put it in a coffee can in the freezer and it’ll keep. For a week, a month, or a decade. That’s what she did and you know what, it worked.
After she died we found cookies and jewels in coffee cans in the deep freeze.
So in honor of my grandma, I decided to try my hand at oatmeal raisin cookies. Plus it made for a good rainy day activity.
I read umpteen oatmeal raisin cookie recipes and in the end, followed none of them.
I tweaked, I adapted, and I cooked by feel. I tried to do my Grandma proud.
The resulting cookies are soft and chewy.
And are spiked with plenty of brown sugar, cinnamon, with vanilla undertones.
I used Trader Joe’s “raisin medley” so there are three types of raisins in the cookies but use any kind you like.
If you don’t like raisins (I know there are lots of people who don’t like raisins) skip the raisins and just make oatmeal cookies. Or use all chocolate chips instead. Or add chocolate chips in addition to the raisins.
My grandma only made oatmeal raisin cookies (she didn’t add chocolate chips to them) so that’s what I did.
Had I refrigerated and chilled the dough prior to baking these, they would have been thicker and plumper.
But I was in a hurry.
Life, and Skylar, were calling me. There was no time to refrigerate dough and wait to bake them.
My grandma would have waited though.
She would have used the spare time to embroider dish towels or iron line-dried pillowcases and bed sheets. Yes, she ironed sheets. Truly old school.
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Oatmeal Raisin Cookies (as inspired by My Grandma, Cooks Illustrated, & Quaker Oats)
1/2 c butter
1 c brown sugar
1/2 c white sugar
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp cinnamon (or to taste, use less if you prefer)
1 c all-purpose flour
1.5 c old fashioned whole oats
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 to 3/4 c raisins
Optional: 1/4 to 1/2 c chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, butterscotch chips, toffee bits, nuts, seeds, etc.
Directions:
In a large, microwave-safe bowl, melt the butter.
Add the brown & white sugar to the melted butter and stir. Set this is the freezer for a couple minutes.
Remove from the freezer (or just wait for the mixture to come to room temp on it’s own) and add the egg (you don’t want to add eggs to that hot mixture as we don’t want scrambled eggs) and stir.
Then add the vanilla extract, cinnamon, flour, oats, baking soda and stir.
Finally, add the raisins and any other optional add-ins and stir.
If you have time, refrigerate the dough for 20 minutes or so. Not necessary, but cold dough will prevent the cookies from spreading as much and will result in a thicker cookie; also using a Silpat will prevent spreading as compared to using parchment paper or an unlined cookie sheet.
Roll or spoon out golf ball sized balls onto a cookie sheet, about 2 inches apart. These cookies do spread a fair amount.
Bake at 325F for approximately 10-12 minutes. (I like very underdone and soft cookies so I baked for 10 minutes) The cookies will look pretty raw even at 12 minutes and that’s ok. Take them out and let the sit and cool well before removing from the cookie sheets or eating.
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When I’m eating one of these, I feel like I’m 8 years old and at my grandma’s house.
Store the extras in a Folgers Coffee can in the basement in the deep freeze.
Or in the regular freezer like I do with all my goodies.
And really, I don’t think you’ll have too many problems with leftovers so the countertop is fine, too.
Be sure to always have desserts in coffee cans in the freezer in case unexpected guests drop by.
Or someone has a baby and you need to bring them cookies.
Or someone dies and you need to bring cookies to the funeral luncheon you’re working in the church basement.
Better hoard those coffee cans
So you can fill them up with cookies!
Related posts:
A tribute post to my Grandma: Someone I Miss
Special K Bars are one of the few recipes of my Grandma’s that were written down
And Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Bites (Raw/No-Bake, Vegan, GF)
Excuse the vintage photography but the recipe is 5 minute wonder & incredibly easy
Questions:
1. Do you like oatmeal raisin cookies?
I love them and as I said in the post, when they’re made properly, I think they trump almost all other cookies. They chewy factor combined with brown sugar and cinnamon flavors seals the deal.
But they have to be soft and chewy. Dry or overbaked oatmeal cookies are like eating cardboard which is why I never buy them from coffee shops or when out. Most people err on the cardboard side of baking I’ve unfortunately found.
2. Do you have any baking or cooking stories to share from your childhood with your parents or grandparents?
I talked about my Grandma in this post. Such a wonderful woman and I miss her so much!
My parents are both amazing cooks and some of my fondest childhood memories are of baking cookies with my mom (or grandma) and watching my parents cook. I proceeded to do that for many years; just watch.
I wasn’t bitten by the cooking bug until my middle 20s. It seemed intimidating but now I have realized it’s fun and the worst that can happen is something doesn’t turn out. So you try again another time. No biggie.
Skylar and I love making and baking together now, too.
Have a great week and enjoy the Columbus Day Holiday and Happy Thanksgiving to the Canadians!
What a lovely tribute to your grandma. These cookies look delicious and I will def give your recipe a whirl sometime.
Oatmeal raisin are hands down my favorite cookie. And yet, I never make them. I think because I never buy raisins. My dad and I both love them the best, and my mom never makes them either. Maybe we like them because they are less common? These look PERFECT. Chewy, moist (I don’t care, I’m using the word), and thin. I like mine thin and not thick and cakey. Seriously these look like your best cookies to date. Simple is best. Always.
My grandma cookie memory is her 7 layer bars. you had to wait for the middle ones becuase she always overcoooked them, so the edge pieces were too hard, but she wouldn’t let people pick their pieces. Grouchy old lady. :D
I read on someone else’s blog post a comment by you (cant remember where I read it) that you dont like raisins…i was like, huh?!
And yes, I used the word moist in the post, too. There is no other word so I am over all hangups :)
Best cookie to date; these or the flourless PB cookies are tied I think.
Your photos are stunning in this post! I have been on a cookie kick all week, and I love a chewy oatmeal raisin cookie with an ice cold glass of milk. And what beautiful memories you have of your Grandmother, I love recipes tied to memories.
thanks so much for the nice comment :)
I _love_ hearing you talk about your grandma. She sounds like such a methodical, loving person. Was she always legally blind or only in her old age? That concept of baking by feel is something we could all learn from. And if you leave chocolate chips out of something, that’s a huge accolade to the original offering!
I haven’t really had oatmeal cookies, but I’m just discovering that I’m ok with gf oats, so I may have to try some soon! Phil and his daughter and lots of our other friends and fam hate raisins, but I _love_ them!
love
Ela
she had a degenerative eye condition called macular degeneration so in her later years, her eyesight just got worse and worse.
And you would love these…make them with GF oats!
Gorgeous photos!
Isn’t there something lovely about grandmothers? They have so much idle time to spend time baking and doing sweet little things in their leisure time.
thanks and yes, grandmothers ARE the sweetest :)
beautiful photography!
thanks :)
just back from thanksgiving with the family – our traditional dinner: pizza and wings! the best – no one slaving in the kitchen!
thanks for sharing more about your grandma, averie! it’s so true that no one makes a certain recipe like a grandma – just yesterday, i blogged about my grandma’s lemon squares. even though we have her recipe, they just don’t turn out like when she made them.
“After she died we found cookies and jewels in coffee cans in the deep freeze.” – > my great-grandma – after she died, we found money tucked into the couch cushions, hidden behind the drapes in the living room – can’t fault her as i actually tuck cash away in hiding spots, too!
i would swap in choco chips…glad you had fun reminiscing about your grandma and baking up a storm today.
my grandma had major valuables stashed…everywhere! we had to go thru her house with such a fine tooth comb. Every drawer, pocket, cupboard…there was possibly a diamond ring lurking in the pocket of anything…it was quite the estate cleanout to say the least. Bless her heart :)
I love oatmeal cookies-though I must confess I’d be sorely tempted to eat the dough, straight up-why even wait for them to bake?;)
Oh I wanted to eat the dough…
These are just basically raw dough, sans egg, so safer to eat :)
https://www.loveveggiesandyoga.com/2009/11/5-minute-raw-vegan-oatmeal-raisin.html
Great pictures! Oatmeal raisin is my favorite type of cookie!
I love oatmeal raisin cookies. My dad actually makes a fantastic oatmeal raisin cookie using bananas.
oooh I bet that’s really good. Bananas + oatmeal is always a good combo!
I absolutely love oatmeal raisin cookies! I think because I love oatmeal and raisins so much, putting them together in a cookie is heaven :)
Amazing pictures, you must have put so much time and effort into this entire post, I love it! My parents aren’t particularly great cooks, they just had to feed 4 very hungry mouths on a budget and in a timely manner so we ate tons of casseroles and ‘cheap’ meals. But the fact that they were able to do so, makes them great cooks in another sense I think.
Thanks for noticing…yes, I spent more than 5 minutes on the post :)
And parents feeding casseroles with a lot of mouths to feed and to do it fast and on a budget, I know exactly what you mean.
Quakers Oatmeal Cookie Recipe is always my starting point when I make Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, but I always make tweaks to make them my own!
My paternal Grandma, bless her heart, could NOT cook. She had 10 kids to chase around though, so I don’t blame her for letting that talent fall to the wayside!
My maternal grandmother, however, is French, and every Christmas she, my sister and I all make a Buche De Noel together, with marzipan “mushrooms”. It’s a tradition that I practically live for!
me too! my absolute favorite. the spices and smell remind me of my childhood. Sweet aroma that filled the house.
p.s.
i love the coffee can freezer idea. GENIUS!
Usually oatmeal raisin cookies aren’t my favorite but yours look great! I especially love that there are GOLDEN raisins in there. :)
I’m eating raisins right now…I’d rather be eating a cookie!