Classic Oatmeal-Raisin Cookies

For the few, the brave, the naughty; soak the raisins in dark rum while you prepare the dough. Add the raisins and the remnants of rum as the final step. Enjoy the cookies warm out of the oven with cold milk or as a cocktail.

The best thing you can do for oatmeal, chocolate chip, etc. cookies is to refrigerate the dough for 8 hours or overnight. Chilling the dough firms the fat, so cookies spread less. It also concentrates the flavors and creates cookies with chewy-crisp (rather than soft) texture. (If you urgently need cookies--and don't we all?--bake what you need right away, then chill the rest of the dough. And see for yourself the improvement in the cookies made with chilled dough.)

If you soak the raisins in hot water for about 15 minutes before adding them the cookies will be more moist and chewy.

If you leave out the spices, the butterscotch threads of vanilla, butter and brown sugar dominate, and it's fabulous.

I like to lightly toast the oatmeal for 8-10 minutes while the oven preheats, just till light golden and fragrant. Don't let them get brown. (I think it may have been Molly O'Neill who suggested this trick.)

Also, as someone who nearly always reduces the sugar in recipes, I don’t think these need a reduction. The sweetness level is perfect. I’m seeing a lot of deviations from the original recipe which is also something I do often, but if you’re considering making these I would start with the original because it’s fantastic, and you should experience the actual recipe!

For those who like both raisins and chocolate chips in their oatmeal cookies, try dark chocolate raisinets...the best of both worlds!

i substitute dried cranberries instead of raisins. you can also add crushed walnuts. great recipe!

Delicious! Made these with the tweaks I always make to cookies: cut the sugar and mixed in different flours. So cut brown sugar to 3/4 c, cut white sugar to 1/4 c, used 1/2 c white flour, 1/2 c almond flour, 1/2 c white whole wheat flour. I think I could cut the brown sugar to 1/2 c and they would still be fine. I have not made the true recipe to compare texture of my adjustments, but these cookies as I made them were perfect. I imagine they would be delicious as written.

I baked these twice in one week and the second time made the mixing of all ingredients easier by 1. adding raisins to the sugars/butter/egg/vanila. (Mixed in by hand.) 2. Then added the oatmeal to the bowl of dry ingredients, combined them, then added about 1/3 at a time to butter/sugar/egg/ raisins. Combining everything with a spoon worked fine and was much easier to get an even mix of ingredients.

Dried cranberries or - even better - dried cherries are terrific too. No need to plump either of them beforehand.

I substitute chocolate chips for raisins. Delicious.

Fabulous cookies. I reduced raisins to 1 cup and added 1 cup chopped pecans. Wonderful.

Old fashioned, delicious, healthy oatmeal cookies! Certainly they're healthy enough for breakfast! I did have to bake them for 15+ minutes to get them brown on the edges. They were still soft on top, but after 5 minutes resting on the cookie sheet, they were perfect.

Convection bake for 8 minutes.
Very good; moist and tasty. We quite enjoyed.