Whether you plan on making them for yourself or a cookie exchange party, there are a few things you should keep in mind when making the best oatmeal raisin cookies, especially since everyone has a special way of adding a little extra pizzazz to their cookies. Take celebrity baker Duff Goldman, who adds an extra step to his baking process to ensure he gets plumper raisins, or Milk Bar’s Christina Tosi, who uses a secret ingredient to give her oatmeal raisin cookies a delicious, crackly effect. Even the Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond, has a foolproof way to make chewy oatmeal raisin cookies. However, her trick doesn’t involve additional steps or extra ingredients. Instead, she wants you to focus solely on the oats.
“Stick with old-fashioned rolled oats for this cookie recipe; they’re essential to the chewy texture,” Drummond explains on her website. Old-fashioned rolled oats and oatmeal raisin cookies are like two peas in a pod, not meant to be separated.
Old-fashioned rolled oats bring a subtle nuttiness and delicious taste that wonderfully complements the sweet yet tart flavor profile of the raisins. As for the cookie’s texture and shape, that is better maintained by old-fashioned rolled oats, as opposed to instant oats since the latter is finer and more processed. “[Instant oats] will leave you with drier cookies,” Drummond notes.
The chewy bite provided by old-fashioned rolled oats is why they are regularly used to make oat-based desserts like strawberry chia oatmeal bars and oatmeal almond joy cookies. But, what exactly are old-fashioned rolled oats?
Why old-fashioned rolled oats work best for oatmeal raisin cookies
Old-fashioned rolled oats are a type of oat that’s been steamed and flattened with a roller. When flattened, these oats gain more surface area, and this change in shape helps them cook faster. In fact, they take less than 15 minutes to cook. Plus, old-fashioned oats are great at absorbing liquids, which is useful when you’re trying to retain the moisture within your cookies. Compared to other oats, rolled oats don’t become a mushy mess when combined with liquids.
If you don’t have rolled oats, please refrain from substituting them with other types of oats. Why? Well, each oat will greatly impact the texture of your cookies. For example, instant oats are steamed longer than rolled oats and are finely chopped, which creates a soft texture perfect for oatmeal. However, that texture doesn’t work with oatmeal raisin cookies. Instead, instant oats are guaranteed to produce a poorly textured cookie that lacks a strong oat flavor.
You should also stay away from steel-cut oats. Just like their name implies, these oats are sliced into small pieces with a metal blade. However, their size is misleading because they take roughly 20 to 30 minutes to cook. That’s because steel-cut oats have a tough texture when raw and need several minutes to soften. Although they have a coarse texture that pairs beautifully with hearty meals like porridge, that texture will completely ruin your cookies. The coarseness will cause your cookies to have an unpleasant, sandy texture that’s less than appetizing.
