The Home Cook: Rolled Oatmeal Sugar Cookies

You're really missing out. Really you are. I post these happy little recipes with a bit of a blurb and you get to read them. It's grand. Unfortunately for you the real show is behind the scenes in my kitchen. I am a certified unmitigated disaster with a spoon and an oven mitt. Don't let me fool you, I am not some neat-nik chef, constantly tidying, putting away and wiping down. I'm more of a hurricane of cooking activity. On the Saffir-Simpson Scale I'd be a solid 3.5...on a good day. For me cooking is almost a no-holds bar impact event, which often nets some fantastic successes, failures and/or messes. At our house there is always a show with dinner. Anyway, it also means that there are very few recipes that get through my clutches unscathed. Back in the day I used to be RELIGIOUS about trying a recipe AS WRITTEN on it's maiden voyage. In fact ask me about my theories on "something new" and I will tell you I always give recipes my trust on their first run through. It's a big fat bold faced lie. I do try and I figure that must count for SOMETHING, but lately the urge to tinker with flavors before I try them has been too much.

Take this harmless Oatmeal Raisin Cookie in it's innocence it calls for all the basics of oatmeal cookie making...butter, flour, sugar, oatmeal, raisins, you know...the givens. However, past experience tells me I don't like raisins. But there was this one time my mother-in-law made cookies with golden raisins and they were good. And sometimes I like raisins if they've been soaked. Then there was this blog entry about brandy soaked raisins. Plus the recipe calls for chopping the raisins. Which is how I got from raisins to chopped apricot brandy soaked golden raisins, and they tasted great! Of course the tinkering couldn't stop there because upon consideration of my baking stash I have half a bag of chocolate chips languishing all unloved and such. Substituting the chocolate chips for the nuts seemed like a good plan. But then the chocolate/oatmeal ratio was all weird so I plunked in another half bag of dark-chocolate chips for a portion of the oats. And perhaps that right there is where I went wrong. Because while these cookies are good and soft and moist as the morning dew, they bake like beeyotches.

Oops.

The batter spreads thin, thin, thin and they stick like glue to the cookies sheets. I mean, yes perhaps, baking on the hottest day of the summer was not the BEST of plans. But still. After two disastrous batches I decided to pack it in before I wasted the rest of the batter figuring a chill in the fridge overnight and some parchment paper would go a long way in retrieving this recipe from the grips of failure. It did and 6.5 dozen cookies later I was a happy camper in one MESSY kitchen, though the cookies still look nothing like the deceptive photo on King Aurthur's website. Oh well, I'm happy with mediocrity.

Next time I'm going to be a bit more faithful to the recipe and try measuring it using the given volumes. I tend to measure my flour on the light side and then sift it, I'm guessing the two together may have made the flour too lofty. (I generally err on the side of sifting and sometimes it bites me in the ass.)

Rolled Oatmeal Sugar Cookies
See link above for Original Recipe

1 cup (2 sticks, 8 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup (1 3/4 ounces) vegetable oil
2 cups (15 ounces) brown sugar, firmly packed
2 large eggs, beaten
3/4 cup (6 ounces) buttermilk or sour milk
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups (12 ounces) currants or ground raisins
2 cup (8 ounces) chocolate chips
3 cups (10.5 ounces) old-fashioned rolled oats
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups (12 3/4 ounces) All-Purpose Flour

Preheat your oven to 350°F.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, oil and sugar. Add the eggs, beating until fluffy, then beat in the buttermilk and vanilla. Stir in the currants, nuts and oatmeal.

In a separate bowl, mix together the baking soda, cinnamon, salt, and flour. Add this, a cup at a time, to the mixture in the bowl, beating well after each addition. let the dough rest for 15 to 30 minutes.

Using a teaspoon, drop the batter onto lightly greased cookie sheets. Bake the cookies in your preheated oven for 12 to 14 minutes, or until they're light brown.

Yield 7 1/2 dozen cookies.

Author's Note: I spelled raisin wrong every single time I used it. This is why God invented Spell Check.