Have you ever faced a situation when your friends suddenly decided to visit you to make a surprise and you had nothing to do the honors of the table? It happened to me several weeks ago. It was quite a late evening when I received a call from two my closest friends and found out that they were driving to see me.
That evening I was a little bit tired and did not have any desire to cook something. Still, it would be impolite if I offered nothing yummy to my dearest friends. I thought for a while and remembered a wonderful recipe of crunchy cookies made by my mom.Later she taught me how to cook them. I have no idea where she took the recipe from. Probably, it was an old culinary book with exclusive recipes.
These are the most phenomenal raisin oatmeal cookies that I have ever made. Frankly speaking, that evening they saved the no-meal situation, and my friends were so satisfied with chewy cookies that they asked me for this wonderful recipe.
Now I am going to share with you how to cook them. This recipe is quite handy for unexpected situations. The only thing is that it is not super easy to cook, because it is kind of tough dough. You know, it is very dense dough, so you need a good mixer for it. If you do not have a mixer, you have to make sure that you will be able to mix the ingredients yourself, so you can handle that type of pressure.
To make yummy cookies, you should start with preparing dough. You are going to cream together two sticks of butter, a cup of white sugar and a cup of brown sugar. If you think that too much sugar is bad for your teeth or health in general, use less sugar or replace a part of it with chocolate. While this is creaming, you need to add two eggs. Eggs are helpful when you need smooth dough and good surface of your cookies. You are going to break the eggs on the side of the dish, while it is supposed to do on a flat surface. It is important to be careful, otherwise eggs can fall down and turn into omelet right on the floor. While mixing, always scrap the dough down the bowl. This will help you to mix well all ingredients and get good dough.
While they are mixing, you are going to put together your dry ingredients in a separate bowl. You should mix your dry stuff. Then it is time to take two cups of flour, one tea spoon of baking soda, and one and a half tea spoons of cinnamon. Normally, you are supposed to add a tea spoon of salt, but I used a salted butter, so I am not going to put any salt. But if you use unsalted butter, just add a half of tea spoon. Now, we are going to add three cups of oats.
I must say that oats are very useful for stomach and a whole organism. They contain a lot of vitamins, useful lipids and amino acids. Consequently, it makes one's skin and hair look healthy and nice. Therefore, even if you use a lot of sugar, chocolate or honey in your cookies, oatmeal make them a healthy food.
Usually, I use quick cook Scotch oatmeal as it "undergoes a process, in order to dry it, which imparts a peculiarly rich and delicious flavor" (Friend Society, 2009). You are going to stir together all of these ingredients, because you are going to add it slowly to the pre-mixture. Now what you are going to do is add about a cup of raisins to this. If you feel like you want to add nuts at this point or chocolate chips you can do that too, but I personally like raisins. You can see how tough the dough is. That is why you need to have a good mixer.
At this point, usually what I do is I refrigerate it for about an hour. So that is what we are going to do. We are going to refrigerate it at least an hour. Do not cook it right away. It cooks better after it comes out of refrigerator and it makes it easier to make balls. After it is cooled about an hour, you take dough and you roll it in balls. You can use ice-cream spoon to take dough or any other spoon available. Then make balls with your hands.
As far as the dough is cooled and tough, it will be very easy to make balls of the needed size. Then take a baking pan, and cover it with wax paper. Put the balls on the paper and flatten them using other side of the spoon. You will have nice tiny scones. Make sure you leave about two inch space between them as they will spread while baking. The appropriate heat of oven is 350°F. If you use less, it will take more time to cook, if you use more, you risk having your cookies burned down. Bake them for about fifteen minutes, then cool it and enjoy with tea or coffee.
You see, the process of cooking complex dishes is often a quick and pleasant process. In addition, take into account that perfect ingredients are not sufficient for making a tasty dish. Cook with love and you will be always satisfied with the result, and, accordingly, your friends and family will appreciate not only a good taste of the meal, but how much you love and care about them. Bon app?tit!
References
- Friend Society. (2009).Useful hints for labourers: from the publications of the Labourers' Friend Society and republished under their direction First series.London: Cambridge Publisher.
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