Oatmeal-Raisin Cookies: or, The things you let your kid write down

Ever let your kid write out a recipe?

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies 1 cup sifted flour 1 tsp baking powder ½ tsp salt 2 or 3 tsp cinnamon ½ tsp (heaping) nutmeg ¾ cup shortening - soft. 1 cup brown sugar 2 eggs ⅓ cup milk 1 cup raisins 3 cups oatmeal Heat oven to 375°. Have greased or paper-lined baking sheets ready. Sift flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg into a large bowl. Add the shortening, brown sugar, eggs, and about half of the milk. Beat until thoroughly mixed (about 1 or 2 minutes if you're mixing them by hand). Stir in the remaining milk, raisins, and oatmeal. Drop by large spoonfuls onto the baking sheets. Bake 12-15 minutes, or until browned at the edges. Depending on how much the first batch spreads while baking, you may want to pat the remaining cookies a little bit flat before baking them. Handwritten manuscript (probably copied from a Quaker Oats can), 1930s?

I'm pretty sure one of my great-grandmother's children copied this word-for-word off the back of a Quaker Oats can. It even looks like they used the kindergarten-aged method of spacing each sentence one finger-width apart. 

If we set aside the charmingly wobbly handwriting, I didn't see how a recipe copied off a food label could go wrong. Manufacturers usually test the heck out of those. (Or at least, the bigger companies do.) So instead of wondering if these would work, I was curious if these were good enough that I would have let my hypothetical child copy it into my recipe book. 

As I piled all the ingredients into the sifter, I had to credit the Quaker Oats people for not skimping on the spices. I didn't measure "with the heart" or by the heaping spoonful. These are level spoonfuls. 

Many cookies start with directions like "Cream the shortening and sugar until light, then beat in each egg one at a time..." but this recipe has us skip all that and just pile everything into the bowl. I'm going to guess that if I had the original oatmeal can in my hand, the recipe would have a headnote about making these cookies "the new, easy way."

I was going to use the electric mixer for this, but I got hit with a sudden hand-stirring mood. We had a few stubborn clumps at first, but this turned into a perfectly smooth batter in 90 seconds.

And now, we are directed to dump in the remaining ingredients. Like any good oatmeal cookie recipe, we have barely enough dough to contain the oats.

After making so many batches of runny cookies over the past few months, I baked a single cookie so that I could find out whether I needed to add more flour before committing an entire panload of dough. (Seriously, the ongoing trend of getting runny cookies unless I add extra flour has gone from frustrating to infuriating. But at least I know I'm not the only one.)

It may not be pretty, but I was thrilled that it didn't turn into a runny mess. (So many of my cookies have done that lately.) But it was so bland that I immediately stirred a lot more spices into the rest of the dough. 

Even after I got the spices right, these cookies were horribly dry. Like, they got crispy and then went too far. I didn't hate them enough to feed the trash can, but I also was muttering to myself that "If I had a child that wanted to copy out THIS recipe..." Then I thought that perhaps these would ripen overnight. It seems like a lot of older cookie recipes are better after they've sat out for a day.

While I was debating whether to let these cookies sit overnight or discreetly chuck them, someone grabbed one off the counter and was like "These are REALLY good." When someone says they like it, I never tell them they're wrong.

With that said, these were a lot better the next day. They had a much nicer, soft texture, and the flavor was a lot better too. But before you rush out to make these for yourself, I should note that overnight the raisin flavor seeped its way through these cookies. You would almost think I found a bottle of raisin extract and stirred a generous splash into them. It added a really interesting complex flavor that I really liked. But since not everyone likes raisins, I thought I'd forewarn.

I should also note that these had a fantastically long shelf life, even without carefully sealing them in an airtight container. They didn't go stale, or hard, or mushy. So if you need a cookie recipe to always have on hand in these increasingly trying times, this could be the one for you.