Oat raisin cookies - anyone have a great recipe for these?

[Sootgremlin]

I made some the other day with a recipe I found online and they were tasty and went down well but I just felt something was missing. The mixture was extremely gooey and hard to manipulate, not like a proper dough, and they were overly sweet and biscuity rather than oaty and chewy, and like a soft baked cookie.

I have a good chocolate chip recipe that works to form more of a classic dough, but don't know how to adapt it. It uses whole meal flour, does this make a difference?

Does anyone have a failsafe that they would be happy to share? Have syrup, will travel. Thanks.

The key to soft cookies is to melt the butter when making the mixture, and to take them out of the oven while they still look not-done. And to cook them at a higher temperature and for a shorter time than you are told to.

This is adapted from a chocolate chip cookie recipe from Nigella Kitchen.

Preheat oven to 200C - Nigella says 170 but ignore her because that won't get you chewy cookies.

Melt 150g butter - it does not matter a jot whether it's salted butter or not - in a big bowl - everything else will be added here
Stir in 225g sugar - Nigella uses 100g caster and 125g soft light brown but I've used a number of combinations and browner sugar gives a more caramelly taste but you can use whatever you have
Add 2 tsp vanilla
Add 1 whole egg and 1 egg yolk - large eggs, yes I know it's a pain separating eggs but they are better if you do this
Add 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda - I don't know why but I've not tried leaving this out
Add plain flour and oats to a total of 300g - depending how oaty/lumpy you want it, maybe 100g oats and 200g flour?
Add as many raisins as look right - at this stage it should be quite hard to mix, quite stiff

Put lumps onto a tray covered in greaseproof paper, put in oven. They should sink down and spread a bit to be more cookie-shaped - if your first batch stay quite tall and roud then add a tiny bit of milk to the rest of the mixture

After 10 minutes (Nigella says 15-17 but that's why I never got chewy cookies when following her instructions) look and see if the very edges look cookedish. The middles will still be wobbly but not liquid.

Take out of oven, leave on the baking tray til they look solid enough to slide the whole lot (including paper) onto a rack.

Don't try to take them off the paper til they are totally cooled.

This is a great recipe. As above, take out of the oven before they look fully ready. Usually the 12 side of 12-15 mins.

12 tablespoons (175g) butter, softened
3/4 cup (160g) firmly packed light brown sugar
2/3 cup (130g) white sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp cinnamon
2 cups (170g) rolled oats
1 1/4 cup (160g) plain flour
3/4 teaspoon bicarb
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
pinch salt if butter was unsalted
1 1/2 cups (200g) raisins
Preheat oven to 375F/190C/Gas Mark 5.
Cream butter and sugars together until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla extract; beat until well combined.
In a separate bowl combine oats, flour, bicarb, baking powder, spices and salt. Mix into butter mixture until just combined. Stir in raisins.
Drop the dough by heaped tablespoons onto ungreased baking sheets, leaving a 2" gap between each mound.
Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown. Cool on sheet for at least a couple of minutes before transferring to a rack.

Always get lots of compliments and recipe requests.

Thank you so much for taking the trouble to set these out for me, so helpful.

I can see quite a few differences to the one I tried, so hopeful for quite a
different result!

When you put the mixture on the sheet do you flatten and shape at all, or just completely leave them to spread and do their own thing?

Looking forward to trying these out.

Nope, just stick them on as little balls and they flatten in the oven. It's a very stiff dough, I had to scrunch the raisins in with my hands.

Ah, interesting, ok. Thanks!

www.redonline.co.uk/food/recipes/hugh-fearnley-whittingstall-chocolate-chip-cookies

I like these ones (see variation at bottom of recipe)