Oatmeal raisin cookies

Just a few days ago I stumbled upon the website of Sweet and Simple Bakes where I read about their monthly baking challenge. Now I love challenges as it gives me a reason to bake something that I maybe otherwise wouldn’t have attempted to do and this particular challenge brought back fond memories of the times I started working at Nike 11 years ago… You have to realise that Oatmeal cookies are really not something you find in Holland that often if at all; so when I started working for Nike I was pleasantly surprised to find laaaarge chocolate chip cookies and large oatmeal raisin cookies. I took one and I was hooked. For the next few months I went into the cafetaria on a daily basis and got one large oatmeal raisin cookie and enjoyed that for most of the morning while working behind my computer… Those where the days!

Oatmeal cookies

They stopped baking them at some point; probably because they weren’t healthy enough and I have left Nike two years ago to start on my own, so no more oatmeal raisin cookies for me untill… I saw the post about this months challenge on Sweet and Simple Bakes and it concerned my favorite cookies, so that choice wasn’t very hard to make!!

I had obviously never made them myself so had no idea whatsoever what rolled oats should be. It’s funny how you can eat cookies forever and just not realise what it is you’re eating…:) Turns out it is something very ordinary and goes by the Dutch name of havermout. I purchased all the ingredients and since I couldn’t find any light brown soft sugar I mixed dark brown with white soft sugar, which I figured would roughly give me lightbrown. I am not entirely sure that I made the recipe correctly to be quite honest, but then I have nothing to compare it with so let’s assume that I did.

The dough was quite heavy and I had to really roll them between my hands to make a walnut sized balls to put in the oven and they also didn’t rise as much as I had thought they would. They still make a decent sized cookie, so I don’t really know what I had expected, but keep in mind that the only oatmeal cookies I had ever seen before where giant sized, so mine are fairly modest in comparison I think. The recipe at the site of Sweet and Simple Bakes called for Oatmeal and chocolate chip cookies, but I couldn’t find the right chocolate, so went for the more original version, but added nuts as well as raisins.

Warm they were absolutely brilliant, but cooled off I would have liked them to be a little chewier on the inside still. Possibly something to do with the size of the cookies maybe?

Anyway, I am not displeased with them for my first try at a challenge. My scottish friend and very good cook will get to taste them in two days, so if she likes them I have passed the test!

I’m already looking forward to the next challenge although that is going to be a while. This post will only be published on april 1st together with the rest of the people that participated! Can’t wait to see everyone else’s results as well!

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