When I was a young girl of 16 a craze erupted at my highschool involving stuffed Sesame Street dolls and/or Sanrio character paraphanalia. Being young and 16 and a girl, you can only guess how impressionable I was, so after the initial wave of girls with their cartoon accessories flooded the school hallways, I knew I just had to have one too.

Let’s keep it straight though! I may have been impressionable, but I didn’t want to be a complete copycat, just a follower of course! So when I ventured into the Sanrio store, staring at all the Keroppi and Hello Kitty characters staring at me I rejected everyone. I bought lonely Pochacco. He’s adorable and I loved him.

When I went into Toys R Us for my Sesame Street character, I scanned over the millions of Grovers, Big Birds and Oscar the Grouches and my little heart went pit pat pittta patt for Cookie Monster. I knew even then that cookies (and cuteness!) would be in my life forever.

Cookie Monster is obsessed with cookies. Chocolate chip is his favorite and mine too, truth be told. They are simple and classic and make everything better. Someone sad, mad or just bad? Hand them a homemade chocolate chip cookie and they are transformed into gladness.

When you think of classic cookies, it’s always chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, thumbprint, sugar and peanut butter. Can you believe that I have never, not once, made oatmeal raisin or thumbprint cookies? There must be something wrong with me and I must correct such wrongness immediately!

So here we are ~ Oatmeal Raisin cookies.

There are a couple of reasons I have avoided this cookie. Quite simply put, these were the enemy growing up. I could not stand raisins in my baked goods nor could I stand red licorice, but that’s another story. Given the option of Oatmeal Raisin or Chocolate Chip, we all know the winner was my dearest chocolate chip. Raisins represented poison as far as I was concerned. And consequently so did red licorice. But that’s still poison. yuck

But I am grown now. My palette is sophisticated (ya right!) and I’m adventurous (in a controlled environment!) so I must create this classic cookie. And wouldn’t you know, I AM grown, my palette IS sophisticated and I AM adventurous! (Ok, so maybe not so adventurous as this is a tried and true cookie, but you catch my drift) They were delicious! Chewy and spicy with the great zing of raisins (no longer poison!) and a tiny hint of salt to keep you salivating for more. This recipe came from my trusted  cookbook The New Best Recipe All New Edition cookbook by Cook’s Illustrated. I have never had a recipe fail from this book. Granted, I haven’t baked or cooked my way through it yet, but I will!

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies – recipe from The New Best Recipe – all new edition

Ingredients

1.5 c unbleached all purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp salt

16 tbs (2 sticks) unsalted butter

1 c packed light brown sugar

1 c granulated sugar

2 large eggs

3 c old fashioned rolled oats

1.5 c raisins

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease 2 large baking sheets. Whisk together the flour through the salt and set aside. With an electric hand mixer or with your beloved kitchenaid stand mixer, beat the butter until creamy (if the butter is cold out of the fridge, this will take some time, I’d sit back for about a minute – unless your house is hot! then it’ll be quicker). Add the brown sugar and granulated sugar and beat until fluffy (this will take longer than you think – about 2-3 minutes….if you aren’t sure if you’ve achieved “fluffy”…beat another 30 seconds before quitting). Then beat in the eggs one at a time. Since I have a stand mixer, I typically crack the egg, dump it (minus the shell!) into the batter while the mixer is running at medium, turn away to put the shell in the garbage and by the time I’m back (my garbage is on the other side of the kitchen) it’s time to put in the next egg.

Stir in the dry ingredients with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula followed by the oats and raisins. Now it’s time for divvying up the dough on the sheets! Grab your small scooper if you’ve got one and if not, just a spoon and grab enough to roll a 2 inch dough ball and place on the sheets about 2 inches apart. Bake for 20-25 min or until golden brown on the edges. Once out of the oven, let cool for a bit to firm up and then transfer them to a cooling rack.

Once cool, eat with zeal a la Cookie Monster! Please give this recipe a try and let me know how it turned out in the comments section!