Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Grandma liked raisins

I’ve said the above before, so it was no surprise to find three recipes for oatmeal cookies in Grandma's box that all contained raisins—Moist Oatmeal Cookies, Oatmeal Drop Cookies, and No-Egg Oatmeal Cookies. 

Raisins and I have a like-hate relationship. I like them just fine, but they don’t like me. Without going into gory detail, I’ll just say that I had my reasons for not wanting to test three different recipes, so I did a two-in-one.  

What's that you say? Well, as you can see from the pictures above, Moist Oatmeal Cookies seemed to be the favorite.  The card was stained and worn as though it had sat on her counter many, many times while she baked. That was the recipe I decided to test, but I also wanted to try adding some chocolate chips as the recipe for Oatmeal Drop Cookies suggested. 

How to Make Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

The first order of business was to cook the raisins. The recipe didn't say how to do it. It didn't say how much water to add or how long to cook them. It just called for cooked raisins. 

Here's what I did: I measured out a cup of raisins, plopped them into a small saucepan, and eyeballed the amount of water.

 I figured the goal was to rehydrate the raisins, not stew them to bits, so I brought them to a boil, turned off the heat, and let them cool in the water. 

While the raisins were cooling, I toasted some pecans over medium heat in a skillet.

The recipe didn't say to do this either. In fact, it didn't say much about the nuts, just "nuts." However, toasting them always elevates their flavor and crunch, so that was what I did.   

On to the cookie dough. I didn’t get far before I realized I was going to have to cheat. I was short on shortening, so I had to substitute half a cup of butter for half of the shortening. (And I wasn’t sad.)

Once beaten with the sugar, the mixture was nice and creamy. 

Adding the eggs made it even creamier. 

As directed, I then alternated between sifting the dry ingredients into the dough . . . 

 and adding some of the water the raisins had been boiled in otherwise known as "raisin juice." 

Because butter contains more water than shortening, I decreased the amount of raisin juice to five tablespoons from the six called for in the recipe. It seemed to be just right. 

Next, I drained the raisins. See how they plumped up but kept their shape? 

They went into the bowl along with the oatmeal. 

After mixing those ingredients together, I separated the dough into two portions. Into one bowl went a half a cup of nuts, and into the other went a heaping half cup of chocolate chips. Later, I added some nuts to the chocolate chip batch as well. 

The recipe says to drop the dough onto a greased cookie sheet. I used a medium scoop and a silicone baking mat. 

When the timer rang, they were puffy and slightly brown around the edges, which signaled they were done enough for me. 

Once they’d cooled a few minutes on the cookie sheet, I moved them to the counter. They flattened out but still looked pretty.  

The question was, how would they taste?

The Verdict

A still-warm-from-the-oven cookie is hard to beat, especially when it contains bursts of sweetness in the form of raisins, chewy oats, toasty nuts, and cozy spices. That was the regular oatmeal raisin cookie, but when I tasted the chocolate chip one, I wasn't sure what to think. At first, the chocolate seemed to be competing with the raisins for attention in my mouth. Then I tasted the one that included nuts, and everything came together to form the perfect bite. If you’re keeping count, yes, that's three cookies I ate for this test.

 I was a little nervous about eating all those raisins, but cooking them seemed to have mitigated some of the adverse gastric effects.  Everyone in the household agreed that these cookies are keepers. My husband liked the ones that included chocolate chips the best. In my book, they were all good, and they were great straight from the freezer too. Don’t ask me how I know that. 

To try this thumbs-up recipe for yourself, click on the arrow in the top right corner of the recipe to download or print it out.