Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

There's nothing like home-made cookies, freshly baked from the oven.

I'm not much of a cookie fan, but one day, I had a box of raisins and Quaker Oats sitting side by side in my kitchen, and decided that they were meant to be together. Turns out it's a match made in heaven - chewy cookies with the crunch of oatmeal, coupled with the softness of the raisin.

I followed this recipe from the fabulous Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen:

Ingredients:
1/2 cup (1 stick, 4 ounces, or 115 grams) butter, softened

2/3 cup (125 grams) light brown sugar, packed

1 large egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

3/4 cup (95 grams) all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon table salt

1 1/2 cups (120 grams) rolled oats

3/4 cup (120 grams) raisins

1/2 cup walnuts (65 grams), chopped (optional)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, egg and vanilla until smooth. In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt together. Stir this into the butter/sugar mixture. Stir in the oats, raisins and walnuts, if using them.
3. At this point you can either chill the dough for a bit in the fridge and then scoop it, or scoop the cookies onto a sheet and then chill the whole tray before baking them.
4. The cookies should be two inches apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake them for 10 to 12 minutes (your baking time will vary, depending on your oven and how cold the cookies were going in), taking them out when golden at the edges but still a little undercooked-looking on top. Let them sit on the hot baking sheet for five minutes before transferring them to a rack to cool.

Makes about 24-26 cookies

My comments:

• I chilled the cookie dough because I prefer my cookies to be thicker.
• I also used a tablespoon to scoop each cookie for consistency.