As Kath Day Night would say, I was a real "stress bigamus," when I first started baking...SO unlike me! But as I baked on, my mood became brighter, the colours more vibrant and the birds began to sing once again!
I felt the stress instantly start to fall away as I measured out my dry ingredients and watched them cascading into the bowl to be set aside.
I mused for a second that the flour, sugar, oats and cinnamon looked liked a snow capped mountain and then I moved on...
I pulled out my hunk-o-butter...
I know, I know... it looks like a lot of butter. But when you realize how many cookies this recipe yields, you won't waste another second with that CRAZY TALK.
I love it when I use US recipes and they call for "sticks of butter." It takes me back to my 8 or so years living there. You'd think I'd have the stick vs grams of butter memorized by now, but...GASP... I wasn't much of a baker when I lived there.
I was too busy working. All. The. Time.
Anyhoo, my favourite site to call upon when I need to know how much butter I should use in grams is the Butter Converter Site:
Check it out, it's a crack up and will convert sticks to grams in two ticks! Say that one ten times fast!
Time to measure out those glorious sugars...
This recipe uses BOTH brown sugar and granulated sugar. I mean why use one kind of sugar when you can use two?
Whiz away with your mixer of choice. I stay loyal to Trixie my baby pink Kitchen-Aid mixer.
Then, I fold my craisins through the mixture and it looks like this...
I tell myself I'll just have a little bit of cookie dough while I wait for the oven to preheat...BAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
As I am rhythmically rolling the cookie dough into uniform sized balls my shoulders drop even further. Baking truly is my therapy.
I am aiming for even sized balls, but that is tricky when you are as impatient as I.
I can't wait till my cookie scooper arrives (hurry up Amazon!)...then my cookies will be identically sized!
I remind myself not to rush as I want to ensure the proper amount of space between each cookie. These cookies do spread a fair bit so give em' some space!
I gave mine 4-5cm's of space between and had no incidence of 'siamese cookies'...Suggest you do the same....
Allowing the necessary space means you use a few trays, but the good news is that the baking paper saves all the washing up! HOORAY!
Into the oven they go and they are out in a flash to have a little rest on their trays before I transfer them to wire racks to cool.
Remember I told you this recipe made a lot of cookies? Check this out...
As with most US recipes this recipe makes a good double batch, which is just fine with me. It means I can eat my weight in cookie dough and still have enough to gift some away to a friend.
Yesterday's lucky recipient was my oldest and dearest friend Amber. She has a house full of sick babies at the moment, so I had to make her a survival pack of these to get her through. These are her favourites of my entire cookie repertoire. Or so I am told.
I pop the rest into my 'oh so stylish' industrial chic cookie jar...
Surely you watched The Block and realized that everything industrial is tres chic?
These cookies are soooooo moreish. Just the right amount of sweet to salty with a hint of sour from the craisins. They are not pillowy soft like my snickerdoodles, nor are they hard and crunchy either; more bendy and chewy. They are a great choice if you are going to gift them as you can package them without them falling apart or crumbling too...
They are the PERFECT cup of tea cookie. Go and make some. Now.
Ingredients
3 1/4 Cup rolled oats
1 1/4 Cup plus 2 tbls plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
225 grams butter (2 sticks converted into grams)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar (firmly packed)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (the good stuff)
1 1/2 cup craisins, dried cranberries or raisins
Method
1. Preheat Oven to 180 degrees. Line cookie trays.
2. Mix together dry ingredients and set aside.
3. Cream butter and sugars till pale and creamy.
4. Mix in eggs and vanilla.
5. Add dry ingredients.
6. Mix in craisins
7. Roll into smallish balls (as pictured) leaving a good space of 4-5cm between balls.
8. Bake for 12-14 minutes till they are just golden brown
9. Let them cool on trays for 5 minutes, then move to cooling racks.
10. Store in an airtight cookie jar for as long as they last!
Recipe adapted from Martha Stewart's Cookies (Oatmeal Raisin Cookies)
