The best cookies ever. EVER.

I feel chocolate-d out. I had the urge to make something sweet and yet filling at the same time. But not that 'nourishment' filling - I needed something sentimental and nostalgic to satisfy that oh-so-peculiar craving of mine. The solution? Oatmeal raisin cookies. But not just any oatmeal raisin cookie - the best oatmeal raisin, correction - the best cookie EVER. Ever. And I've made a lot of cookies and none of them have topped this recipe. Maybe it's the cinnamon, or the chewy and crunchy combination of raisins and oats...or the obscene amount of sugar they contain - but either way, they are the best cookie ever. For a while, I thought the oatmeal raisin cookies at Capers could top these guys - but I was mistaken. I just hadn't eaten these in a while.


Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
c/o Darlene from allrecipes
The print-out date on my recipe is from 2006 -
but I have been churning out these babies since 2002.

3/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 3/4 cups rolled oats
1 cup raisins



Preheat oven to 375F.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugars until smooth.
Beat in the eggs and vanilla until fluffy.
Stir together flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.
Gradually beat dry ingredients into butter mixture.
Stir in oats and raisins.
Drop in mounds (then flatten gently) onto ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake 8 - 10 (I used about 1 1/2 tablespoon scoop - 15 min bake time) minutes or until golden brown.
Cool slightly and remove onto cooling racks - cool completely.

Experimenter's note:
I was at the T&J's the other night for our Deep Fry Party. Yes, you read that right. While preparing some sort of fried goodness, the J mentioned to me a food blog posting about the comparisons between Silpats and parchment. My better friends know me as a Silpat fiend. FIEND. I have been collecting Silpats since I was 16 and almost 10 years later, I have a pretty sizeable collection. When I used to work at the store - I could sell non-stick baking sheets that weren't even unpacked yet - seriously - I'd have to go to the back and dig them out myself. I believe in this technology and it has never let me down. But the J informed me that the test yielded interesting results - different textures for different baking surfaces. After witnessing my shocked expression, there was some light backpedalling - the superior baking surface of the Silpat is indeed non-stick, but the heat distribution is varied. Diff'rent stroke for diff'rent cookies, I guess.

So for these cookies I decided to test this out myself - half the batch was baked with Silpat mats, the other half - ungreased parchment. The results? No difference. Not after the first day, at least. I wish I had segregated them in my cookie jar somehow - perhaps after a day or two the differences would be more obvious - which cookie would hold a better crunch? What about flavour retention? I think a good test cookie would maybe be something like....a french macaroon? I'd like to see how a gougere would do as well. I'll let you know the results of future experimentations lead.

Until then...