delicious oatmeal cookies

+

I found this recipe for oatmeal cookies from the Joy of Baking website and modified it just a bit--the original recipe called for 3 cups of oats, which I found made the dough very crumbly (especially after chocolate chips or raisins are added) and difficult to form into balls to place on the cookie sheet. The resulting cookies were very good, but crisper than what I was looking for. (I like more tender oatmeal cookies.) I cut the oats down to 2.5 cups, and the dough was far easier to work with and produced wonderful tender cookies. (If you like crisper ones and don't mind working with crumbly dough, use the three cups.)

There are two variations here, chocolate chip oatmeal cookies and cinnamon-raisin oatmeal cookies. Usually I make both kinds at once to suit the tastes of our household, but you can add whatever you like!

Oatmeal Cookies

3/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup flour (white, whole wheat, or a combination)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats

(1 cup raisins and 1/2 tsp cinnamon, for cinnamon-raisin cookies, or 1 cup chocolate chips for chocolate chip cookies)

Preheat oven to 350F.
Cream butter and brown sugar together in large bowl. Add egg and vanilla; blend well. In another bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, salt, oats (and cinnamon, if using it). Add dry ingredients to bowl with butter and sugar mixture and stir together. Add raisins or chocolate chips. Place cookies a couple inches apart on two foil-lined cookie sheets (about 2-3 tablespoons of dough per cookie). Bake at 350F for 12-15 minutes or until bottoms of cookies are golden brown. Enjoy! These always seem to disappear quickly. :-)

God bless,
Mrs. Bear