As I was sorting and re-organizing the cupboards and the freezers the past few days, I’ve come across several ingredients I rarely use: leftovers from some Tasty.com experiment or a houseguest. Luckily, I’m able to use most of them in some delicious Oatmeal Raisin Cookies.
The two main ingredients I wanted to use up are whole wheat flour and steel cut oats. Neither are part of my regular pantry, but I appreciate the earthy, nutty flavor they bring to anything cooked with them. And my budget this week was a little too short for anything sweet in grocery shopping. Yep, you interpreted that correctly. No ingredients were purchased to make these cookies happen!
For such a classic cookie, I always start with my Mom’s use-worn Betty Crocker cookbook, where butter is always listed as “shortening.” But I made a few adjustments to let me use up as much of these random ingredients as possible.
Wet Ingredients
- 1.5 sticks (3/4 cup) of softened butter (vegan: 3/4 cup coconut oil, peanut butter or other soft or liquid vegetable fat)
- 1 cup packed brown sugar
- 1/4 regular sugar
- 2 eggs (vegan and gluten free: 2 egg blend of The Vegg or other vegan baking substitute)
- 1/2 cup water (don’t skip this because the oats need it)
Dry Ingredients
- 1.75 cups whole wheat flour (gluten free: use same amount of GF all purpose flour)
- 1 t baking powder
- 1/4 t baking soda (omit for a flatter, chewier cookie)
- 1 t cinnamon
- 1/2 t ground cloves
- 1 t salt
Add Ins
- 2 cups steel cut oats (or rolled oats)
- 1 cup chopped dried fruit: raisins, craisins, cherries, apricot, prunes
- 1 cup chopped nuts: pecans, almonds, walnuts (nut-free: try toasted hemp seeds or sesame seeds in place of nuts)
Preheat your oven to 350°F.
Blend the wet ingredients together. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and blend well. Add your chosen add-ins and mix well.
Drop by teaspoon-fuls onto a silpat or a greased cookie sheet; for this step, I use one of my few Pampered Chef tools: a teaspoon ice cream (or cookie) scoop. It really helps to make quick and not-messy work of this step.
When I use all three of my baking sheets at once, I can get nearly all of the dough in at the same time. I had about 1 dozen left for the second round. That’s another great strategy for making cookie baking easier and faster. Works when you’re doing cut out and decorate cookies too!
Bake at 350°F for 15 minutes. Be sure to preheat all the way before putting your cookies in.
Transfer to a cooling rack immediately. These will cool to eat quickly!
Makes 5-6 dozen.
Singing about Cooking 