Oatmeal raisin cookies (p. 767)

I love oatmeal cookies. I always have. They are easily my very favorite cookie variety (followed closely by gingersnaps--what can I say? I'm an old-fashioned desserts type of girl). My mom isn't a big sweets-eater but she did regularly make oatmeal cookies.

I remember an assignment in elementary school where we were to write a recipe as we remembered it and then go home, get the real recipe, and compare. I have no idea what the point of that assignment was but I do remember that I picked oatmeal cookies and had the recipe entirely right other than forgetting baking soda and getting the temperature of the oven 25 degrees off. Pretty good, even now. That should let you know how often mom made delicious oatmeal cookies.

My mom was a home economics education major in college. She did a college project on the many uses of Quaker Oats and her love of Quaker Oats never really died. To this day she says if she hadn't gotten married young, she would have loved to work in the Quaker Oats test kitchen. Which probably explains the oatmeal cookie addiction.

I was cautiously optimistic about Oatmeal raisin cookies (p. 767).

This was a pretty typical oatmeal cookie recipe. I mixed flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nugmeg and salt in one bowl and butter, sugar, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla in another. I slowly stirred the flour mixture into the butter mixture:



I mixed in craisins (I like craisins a lot better than raisins) and rolled oats:



They held their shape nicely. Until I noticed that TJOC specifically says to flatten the balls. I flattened half of them and left half balled--it didn't seem to matter:



They flattened and spread quite a bit regardless:



They were okay. I've had better oatmeal cookies. I like my cookies cakey and soft, not flat and crispy, although I know not everyone agrees. Honestly, I like cookies to be half Crisco, half butter so they are softer but still have the buttery flavor. I think cookies without nuts are a travesty but Josh doesn't like nuts in cookies (he's obviously out of his mind) and I decided to make them his way (they were far less delicious without nuts). They did have a nice flavor.