I have several good cookbooks, but I don't like the oatmeal cookie recipes in any of them. I think it's too much flour, not enough oats; they are just boring. And the recipe on the back of the oatmeal box never turns out right either. Bakery cookies are usually too sweet and made with shortening instead of butter (or decent margarine) I finally found a good one:
Southern Living
Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
By Ann Taylor Pittman Published on November 17, 2023
Recipe tested by Southern Living Test Kitchen
Active Time: 22 mins
Total Time: 47 mins
Yield: 3 dozen
Ingredients
3 cups uncooked old-fashioned rolled oats
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. table salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 1/3 cups raisins
Directions
Prepare oven and baking sheets:
Preheat oven to 350°F with one oven rack in upper third and one in lower third of oven. Line 3 baking sheets with parchment paper.
Toast oats:
Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add oats to dry skillet; cook, tossing frequently, until browned and toasty-fragrant, about 5 minutes.
Immediately pour oats onto one of the prepared baking sheets and spread into a thin layer to cool quickly.
Make cookie dough:
Whisk together flour, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon in a medium bowl.
Place butter and sugars in a large bowl; mix with an electric mixer at medium speed until fluffy and well combined, about 2 minutes.
Beat in vanilla, then beat in eggs, 1 at a time.
Add flour mixture; beat at low speed until just combined. Add oats and raisins; beat at low speed until just combined.
Scoop cookie dough:
Scoop dough with a 2-tablespoon cookie scoop onto prepared pans, 12 per pan.
Bake cookies:
Place 2 pans in oven. Bake until lightly browned around the edges, 13 to 15 minutes, rotating pans halfway through the cook time.
Remove from oven and cool cookies on pans for 2 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Repeat with remaining dough.
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I used 2 cups of old-fashioned rolled oats and 1 cup of "quick" oats. (I had both) I toasted the OF oats but not sure that I will next time. The recipe is serious about "12 per pan"; don't crowd them because the spread quite a bit. A #40 cookie scoop made 3 1/2 dozen. Because I used my new convection oven, I reduce the temperature to 325 and didn't bother rotating the pans. They still cooked in 13 minutes. I used stick margarine instead of butter because I think it bakes better (I use real butter for sugar cookies.) if you use margarine make sure it is really margarine and not a "buttery spread"; it should have 100 calories per tablespoon, not 80 or 67 or whatever.
