My Favourite Oatmeal Raisin Cookies Are Method Higher Than Any Bakery’s

A few years in the past, I used to be answerable for doing the primary bake of the day at a café. At 5:00 a.m., I’d preheat the ovens, then spend hours baking trays and trays of croissants, muffins, scones, and an assortment of desserts and cookies. As I quietly labored, I’d sip a cup of espresso and nibble on any pastries that weren’t adequate to promote, like lopsided muffins or oval cookies.

I typically discovered myself gravitating to the oatmeal raisin cookies: Tender, chewy, and filled with hearty rolled oats and loads of raisins, they felt like an acceptable alternative for breakfast. Every chew was wealthy and buttery, with deep caramel notes from darkish brown sugar and simply sufficient salt to forestall the cookie from being overly candy. That cookie gave me a deep appreciation for oatmeal raisin cookies—although chocolate chip cookies get all of the love, oatmeal raisin cookies are simply as (and generally much more!) scrumptious.

Living proof: My Birmingham, Alabama-based check kitchen colleague Nicole Hopper’s oatmeal raisin cookies that we’re sharing the recipe for right here—they’re delicate and crisp, with barely chewy edges and heat notes of cinnamon and freshly floor nutmeg. Thanks to a couple intelligent methods, Nicole’s cookies are as flavorful as may be, and with a number of of her suggestions and tips, you can also make bakery-worthy oatmeal raisin cookies in your very personal kitchen.

7 Ideas for Making the Finest Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Brown your butter. Whereas many oatmeal raisin cookie recipes have you ever begin by creaming the butter and sugar collectively, Nicole browns the butter by heating it till the water begins to evaporate and the milk solids caramelize, producing wealthy, nutty flavors that pair effectively with the toasted oats and dried fruit, leading to a extra complicated tasting cookie.

Bloom your spices. Blooming refers back to the means of heating spices in a fats like oil or butter, which helps launch many fat-soluble taste compounds. As former Critical Eats editor Sho has touched on, blooming can also be an effective way of evenly dispersing taste all through a dish or, on this case, cookie dough. After you brown the butter, Nicole has you stir in floor cinnamon and freshly grated nutmeg. Because the cinnamon and floor nutmeg sit within the sizzling fats, they change into much more aromatic, giving the cookies a extra pronounced spiced be aware. 

Use rolled oats. In case you don’t have any rolled oats available, it might be tempting to swap in quick-cooking oats or steel-cut oats. These oats, nevertheless, don’t have the proper of texture: As a result of quick-cooking oats are steamed and rolled thinner than common oats, they’re too delicate to include into cookie dough with out disintegrating or crumbling. Metal-cut oats, alternatively, are reduce with blades—not steamed and rolled. In consequence, they take for much longer than rolled or quick-cooking oats to prepare dinner, and received’t soften adequately when folded into cookie dough. 

Toast the oats. One of many quickest methods to provide oats extra taste is to toast them. (It is a trick that additionally works with different grains and cereal, and one I take advantage of in my Rice Krispie treats and Cornflake marshmallow treats.) All you need to do is lay the oats in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet, then toast them within the oven till they’re evenly browned and aromatic. The warmth enhances the earthy flavors of the oats, and along with the brown butter, darkish brown sugar, and vanilla, ends in a cookie with deep butterscotch notes. 

Chill the dough. Refrigerating the dough for at the very least two hours permits the flour and toasted oats to hydrate, whereas additionally firming up the butter, which prevents the cookies from spreading an excessive amount of within the oven. Most significantly, although, chilling the dough offers enzymes an opportunity to interrupt down giant carbohydrates. As former Critical Eats culinary director Kenji notes in his chocolate chip cookie recipe, this helps with the caramelization and browning course of, leading to extra flavorful cookies.

For completely spherical cookies, swirl a hoop cutter round every cookie. Although not important, I wish to make my cookies completely spherical by swirling a hoop cutter round each whereas they’re nonetheless heat on the baking sheet. No ring cutter? No worries. Your cookies will nonetheless be scrumptious—simply not good circles.

Cool the cookies correctly. As a result of these cookies are very delicate out of the oven, it’s essential to allow them to cool on the baking sheet for at the very least quarter-hour. This offers them an opportunity to set, and prevents them from breaking once you switch them to the wire rack to complete cooling. As soon as they’ve had an opportunity to chill, serve them up with glasses of milk or stash them in an hermetic container the place they are going to final for 5 days (if they are not wolfed up sooner).

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