Oatmeal Cookies, with plenty of raisins, are one of my favorite cookies!
While reading the King Arthur Flour baking blog; Flourish (I found the post on reducing sugar in cookies fascinating); I came across the mention of molasses in oatmeal cookies. Sounded intriguing to me!
A look through the cook book collection turned up these two recipes from Good Housekeeping's Book of Recipes and Household Discoveries. I was delighted to see that version 2 used molasses and cooked oatmeal. What I didn't realize is the recipe called for a half of cup of molasses!
Yes, they turned out to be molasses cookies with raisins and odd lumpy bits of oatmeal. Not too good. The cooked oatmeal also gave the cookies an odd texture. Perhaps I didn't cook the oatmeal enough, but the dough was very sticky and I had to drop by spoonful onto the pan. Once on the pan, they cooked just like I had dropped them.
Not really cookies with a spongy-gummy cake-like texture. I decided not to waste time and put the dough/batter into a 9 x 9 pan. It made a not too terrible molasses cake.
Now that I had a taste for Oatmeal Raisin cookies, I decided to go ahead and give version 1 a try. They turned out lovely! Lots of raisins, a bit crispy on the outside, but soft inside.
I found it interesting the recipe called for rolling and cutting out the cookies, even though I just rolled the dough in balls and flattened onto the cookie sheet.
