You know its funny. I've been baking cookies for years. I've learned some tips and tricks over that period, but it takes just one little read through McGee "On Food and Cooking" to give me pause as to what I really know about baking. I've been having the urge to bake for a number of weeks now. I had a big bag of oats, bought intending to make granola, but hadn't made it yet. This naturally had me thinking about oatmeal cookies. I always loved my mom's oatmeal cookies. She put everything into them: Rice crispies, coconut, chocolate chips, raisins, nuts you name it. Of course she made the plain ones too, which I believe came from the recipe on the Quaker oats box. I started there, searching online for that recipe. It looked good, but I couldn't resist checking out other recipes. There seemed to be whole websites devoted just to oatmeal cookie recipes. This of course leads to the inevitable urge to change the recipe. I also like to compare one against the other to see basic proportions and areas where I can customize. I finally settled on one recipe with some adjustments. This recipe did something I never thought of; using toasted oats. The original recipe had a pretty low ratio of oats to flour so I used proportions from more conventional ones, but kept in the buttermilk and the toasted oats for interesting flavor.
Here's the recipe:
1 C Butter (3/4C is ok)
1 1/2 C Brown sugar packed
1 tsp Vanilla
2 Eggs
3 C Oats
1/2 C Buttermilk *(or soured milk)
1 tbs Molasses
1 1/2 C Flour
1 tsp each of Cinnamon and Nutmeg (cardamom is also good)
1 tsp each of Baking soda and Baking powder and Salt
Raisins 1 cup or more
Toasted Walnut pieces 1 cup or more
Good quality Flaked salt for topping (optional)
Method:
Toast approximately 1/2 the oats in a preheated 350 degree oven until golden brown. Practice using your nose to smell when done. It's cool how many times you'll be right if you pay attention to smell. Put toasted oats in a bowl separate from the untoasted ones, and let cool. Toast nuts at the same time.
Cream Butter and sugar in a mixer until lightened and fluffy.
(approximately 5 minutes so air is incorporated). Add eggs one at time and mix thoroughly after each addition. Add vanilla.
Measure out your dry ingredients. Put flour, spices, leavening and salt in a bowl. Whisk lightly to combine. This is to make sure your salt, leavening and spices are distributed evenly throughout the flour
Add Molassas to Buttermilk and stir to combine. Add to toasted oats and stir to coat.
Soured milk can be made and substituted for Buttermilk by adding 1 tsp. vinegar or lemon juice to whole milk. (let stand 5 minutes before using)
Add dry ingredient mixture in three stages mixing until combined each time.
Stir in by hand the toasted oat mixture and untoasted oats. Add raisins and nuts if desired.
Spoon out cookie dough by teaspoon, tablespoon or more depending on the size cookie you want. Use parchment paper or silpat mats on the cookie sheets to keep raisins from caramelizing and burning on the bottom of the cookies. Bake at 350 for 7-15 minutes depending on size. Take cookies out when golden brown around the edges. Leave on cookie sheet 1 minute to finish cooking and cool a bit before removing and cooling on rack.
Salt variation: Sprinkle individual cookies, with a very small quantity of flake style sea salt before putting in the oven. If you like the kick sea salt gives caramels, this will deepen and make richer the caramel flavor of the final product. I love Maldon salt. It's not too expensive and gives just the right amount of saltiness and crunch.
What McGee taught me about making drop cookies.
A higher proportion of liquid to flour produces soft cake like cookie texture or crispy depending on how much water is baked out. This goes along with the type of sugar used in a recipe. More sugar in a recipe can produce cookies that spread more, because as sugar melts it turns liquid allowing cookies to spread. White sugar can melt and recrystallize making a crispier cookie while brown sugar or honey has more moisture and doesn't get to that stage as quickly. Moister sugars can also make cookies spread, but sugar itself helps cookies rise by the process of mixing with fat. When you cream the butter and sugar it allows the formation of air bubbles, which in some recipes is all that is used for leavening. As far as fat goes, butter allows the cookie to spread more too, because it has a lower melting point than shortening. All of this is interesting to me, because it allows me to decide what I want the finished product to look and taste like. You can still follow recipes, but you can judge for yourself if it is a well written recipe and if will come out well, before you use it. Plus with knowledge you can change things knowing what will happen if you do. I highly recommend having a copy of McGee for reference. It increases my cooking skills every time I consult it.
