I love old fashioned oatmeal cookies, with lots of raisins and crunchy pecans. Not huge cakey monstrosities…nor thin too-crisp wafers….but, like Goldilock’s bears, somewhere in between. I’ve even been known to eat one of these with coffee for breakfast…..shhhh don’t tell!!! After all, isn’t oatmeal a breakfast food? Cookie recipes are easy to put together, fast to bake, lend themselves to excellent freezing and lasts well in the cookie jar….or not…. if you encourage cookie monsters. So as a last minute dessert, they are no-brainers. Right now I’ve got 3 different cookie dough logs in my freezer, and all I have to do is slice off a few cookies of each to have a nice selection of homemade, freshly baked cookies for family or company. And don’t forget that you can use a cookie dough as a bottom crust of a pie, or crumbled and sprinkled as a streusel over a fruit cobbler. Versatile, huh?
Grandma’s Old Fashioned Oatmeal Cookies
Ingredients:
- 2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
- 3/4 cup light brown sugar
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 3 cups Quick Quaker Oats (not instant)
- 1 cup chopped pecans (or walnuts)
- 1 cup raisins
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cookie sheet with parchment.
In a medium bowl, combine flour, salt, baking soda and cinnamon.
Cream butter with sugars until creamy in a large mixing bowl. Add eggs, one at a time and mix until incorporated. Add vanilla and mix. Add flour mixture and beat well. Add oats and mix again. Add nuts and raisins and mix briefly.
Scoop by heaping tablespoons onto parchment lined cookie sheet.
Bake 10-15 minutes until golden brown.
The raw dough freezes well when shaped into a log and wrapped in plastic wrap then sealed in a freezer ziploc bag. Just slice straight from the freezer and bake for 15-20 minutes.
