Classic Oatmeal Cookies Revisited 

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Winter has arrived, so far carrying buckets of rain. Spreading a sweet aroma around the house by baking cookies is an excellent antidote to seasonal claustrophobia, when I start feeling caged within the walls of short, wet days.

Guided on one hand by my Brown Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies ("What-if Cookies," Jan. 13, 2022) and on the other by a recipe in Stacy Adimando's The Cookiepedia, I experimented with another traditional sweet morsel of goodness, oatmeal raisin cookies, testing various versions, until I settled on the recipe here.

Researching online, I read the first oatmeal cookie recipe in the U.S. can be found in Fannie Merritt Farmer's The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (1896). You can look at the recipe online on page 406 of the 1901 edition of the book via Google Books. These are made with "fine oatmeal" and no raisins. In her later A New Book of Cookery (1912), Farmer published a recipe for Nut Oatmeal Cookies that uses rolled oats, raisins, nuts and spices, including cinnamon — close to how we make these cookies nowadays.

I like looking at old recipes. They provide a list of ingredients with few details so they can be printed in two columns, followed by a few lines of terse instructions. I see them as polished kitchen notes or recordings of oral traditions.

Back to the modern kitchen. My version of the recipe includes four steps to execute ahead of preparing the cookie dough: 1) browning the butter, 2) re-hydrating the raisins, 3) toasting the rolled oats and 4) toasting the sliced almonds. Additional personal touches include the use of coconut sugar and a variety of flours.

The cookies are tender and sweet enough, with a contrast between plump raisins and crisp sliced almonds, while the rolled oats give them more body. They make up in flavor what they lack in good looks. It's nice to have one in the afternoon with a steaming cup of rooibos tea. I like them a lot.

Brown Butter Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

I use local flours from Beck's Bakery and Humboldt Grain Girls: soft white wheat (pastry) and rye flours (available at the Arcata Farmers Market and North Coast Co-op; local quinoa will hopefully be back in 2024). Eggs, especially farm fresh, vary in size. I recommend weighing the egg and using one just over 2 ounces. Makes 11 cookies.

4 tablespoons (2 ounces) unsalted butter

1 ½ ounces raisins

1 tablespoon warm apple juice, tea or water

3 ounces rolled oats

1 ounce sliced almonds

Coconut oil to add to the brown butter to yield 2 ounces total

1 ounce coconut sugar

¾ ounce light brown sugar

1 large egg at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ ounce whole-wheat pastry flour

½ ounce sprouted pastry flour or whole-wheat pastry flour

½ ounce whole rye flour

½ ounce (sprouted) quinoa flour 

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon baking soda 

¼ teaspoon sea salt

Before preparing the cookie dough, brown the butter. Cut the butter into pieces and place in a small saucepan. Melt the butter and continue to stir over medium-low heat. The butter will foam, then quickly turn golden and smell nutty. Remove the saucepan from the heat, pour the brown butter into a ramekin and let cool completely. It will set and can be refrigerated until ready to use.

Plump the raisins. Separate any clumped raisins and halve large ones. Place the raisins in a ramekin. Pour the tablespoon of warm juice, tea or water over them and stir well. Stir again a few more times.

Toast the oats. Heat the oven to 350 F. Spread the rolled oats on an unlined baking sheet. Toast the rolled oats in the oven for 4-5 minutes, shaking the sheet halfway through. Transfer the rolled oats onto a plate to cool.

Toast the sliced almonds in a dry skillet over medium heat. Shake the skillet to ensure even toasting and prevent burning. Transfer the toasted almonds onto a plate. 

Make the cookies. Let the brown butter soften at room temperature. Transfer it to a mixing bowl, weigh it and add enough coconut oil to total 2 ounces. Add both sugars to the mixing bowl. Using a spatula or wooden spoon, cream the butter and sugars. Add the egg and the vanilla extract, and stir until combined.

Sift the flours into a small mixing bowl. Sift in the baking soda, then add the salt and the cinnamon. Add about half of the dry ingredients to the wet ones and stir briefly. Add the rest and mix until just incorporated. Add the toasted oats and incorporate them. Finally, add the raisins and incorporate them.

Cover the mixing bowl and place it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes or so to firm up the dough.

Heat the oven to 350 F. Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper.

Take the cookie dough out of the refrigerator. Add the toasted almonds to the dough and stir to incorporate. Weigh approximately 1.2 ounces of dough for each cookie, shaping each piece of dough into a half dome. Tap the top to slightly flatten the dome and place on the baking sheet, leaving 1 ½ to 2 inches of distance between them.

Bake the cookies for 6 minutes. Rotate the baking sheet and bake for another 6 minutes. The cookies will still be soft with golden brown edges.

Remove the cookies from the oven and leave on the baking sheet for a few minutes, then transfer them onto a wire rack and cool completely.

Savor and share them, and, in between, store them in a sealed container.

Simona Carini (she/her) also writes about her adventures in the kitchen on her blog www.pulcetta.com and shares photographs on Instagram @simonacarini. She particularly likes to create still lives with produce from the farmers market.