There Oat To Be A Law Against These

January 15 , 2017 by: Amber Trudeau Cookies

Oatmeal raisin cookies. I love ’em. I can’t believe I don’t already have a post about these on this blog. Well…technically I can believe it. For some reason, they don’t seem to be other people’s favourite. Even if/ when people are willing to embrace a love for all things oatmeal cookie, they always want it combined with chocolate chips. Now I have nothing against chocolate (obviously 🙂 ), but there’s just something so comforting and satisfying about oatmeal raisin cookies.

Now y’all (I’m apparently a Texan now?) know me enough by this point to know that I can’t just do plain ol’ oatmeal raisin cookies, but rest assured that I didn’t deviate too too much from a standard recipe this time. Changes from the old standard include using golden raisins instead of regular (because I like to change it up like that), and my boozy tendencies also “forced” me to soak them in alcohol first 🙂 .

Now I initially couldn’t decide whether I wanted to soak the raisins in maple whisky, or fireball (aka cinnamon) whisky. I was mentioning this conundrum to my brother’s girlfriend and she said “why wouldn’t you just do both?”. A solution so obvious and elegant that I am mildly shamefaced that I couldn’t figure it out (thanks Brenda! Saving cookies since 2016 😉 ).

Although now as I sit here writing about this, I’m slightly sad that I didn’t throw in a third option which would’ve been a combination of both types of soaked raisins in one cookie (or soaking the raisins in a mix of both kinds of liquor?!!). My solution(s) to this quandry without being “forced” to make another batch of cookies? Option 1 – stack one of each kind of cookie on top of each other and then you get the best of both worlds! (plus an excuse to eat two cookies 😉 ). Option 2 – cut one of each cookie in half and “glue” them back together with some cinnamon-maple icing. Mmmm…that sounds good too. So many possibilities, but I digress.

Now I’m a fan of chewy cookies in general – nothing against you if you’re a crispy cookie kind of person (I get that those are probably better for coffee and tea dipping), but if I have a choice, nine times out of ten, chewy will win the day (and the day he doesn’t, C3PO and R2D2 might make a little sad face 😉 . No? Super nerdy Star Wars jokes aren’t cool anymore? Oh….they never were? What’s happening to the world….err…universe? *sad and resigned head shake*)

Anywho, little science lesson for you now if you too like your cookies on the chewier side. The “secrets” (not secret at all, Alton Brown even had a whole segment on his show “Good Eats” about how to make the chewy, puffy or crisp/ thin cookies) are to swap in bread flour to replace regular flour, and either super amp up the brown to white sugar ratio, or (and this is what I typically do) replace white sugar with brown sugar completely (adding a bit of molasses will also supercharge your chewyness factor, so I did that here too. Also, I just love molasses – which is why I usually pronounce it as mmmmmmmmmmmolasses. Ok, that’s a lie, but I might just have to start doing that from now on, so prepare to be incredibly irritated by me many times in the near future 😉 ).

Now chew on that while you’re whipping up a batch of these chewy delicious beauties. Oh oatmeal raisin cookies, in the words of Ralph Wiggum, I chew chew chew-se you:

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Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Yield: 2 dozen cookies

Ingredients

  • ¾ cup vegan butter, melted
  • ¼ cup coconut oil in liquid form
  • 1 tablespoon shortening
  • 1 ¼ cups packed brown sugar
  • 2 egg replacer
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla
  • ½ teaspoon maple extract
  • 1 tablespoon molasses
  • 1 3/4 cups bread flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon corn starch
  • 1 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
  • 1 cup golden raisins soaked in liquor of choice (I used maple whisky for half, and cinnamon whisky for the other half. I.e. a ½ cup of each)
  • Sea salt to sprinkle on top (optional)

Directions

  1. Using a hand mixer, cream together the butter, oil, shortening and sugar on medium speed until smooth (about 2 minutes). Add the egg replacer and mix on high for another minute. Add the vanilla, maple and molasses and mix on high until combined. Set aside
  2. In a separate bowl, sift together the bread flour, baking soda, cornstarch, cinnamon, and salt.
  3. Add to the wet ingredients and mix on low until combined. Stir in the oats using a wooden spoon. If you’re using two different flavours of soaked raisins like I did, then at this point divide the dough in two before stirring in one flavour of raisins into each half. Otherwise you can just add it your main mixture when you add in the oatmeal. Dough will be thick, but fairly wet, so don’t worry. Chill the dough ideally overnight, but for at least an hour in the refrigerator.
  4. Remove the dough from the fridge about 20 minutes before you want to make it to make it easier to work with.
  5. Preheat oven to 350F.
  6. Using a cookies scoop (or just roll a golf ball sized ball of cookie dough if you prefer), scoop cookies dough onto cookie sheet about 1-2 inches apart (they won’t really spread much so you can place them fairly close together). Press down on the top lightly with your hands and sprinkle the tops with sea salt if desired.
  7. Bake for 10 minutes or until very lightly browned on the sides (they’ll continue firming up once out of the oven, so don’t be concerned if they don’t look done). Remove from the oven and let cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. 

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About Amber

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Hi, I'm Amber Trudeau.  I bake.... a lot.

I'm also vegan, and found that whenever I went out to a restaurant my dessert choices were limited to sorbet, sorbet, and sorbet.  So I started making my own desserts. I wanted them to taste good though - so my ultimatum was to make delicious desserts that also happen to be dairy-free and egg-free. Every week or so, I challenge myself to try something new.  To recreate some kind of traditional dessert that tastes amazing without using animal products.

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