Old-Fashioned Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
The oat-box classic: butter, brown sugar and cinnamon with three cups of rolled oats and a cup of raisins, baked just until light golden for chewy middles.
Wikipedia says the earliest recorded oatmeal cookie recipes appeared in America in the 1890s, when rolled oats were heavily promoted, and that cookbook author Jean Anderson traces the first to Fannie Farmer's "Boston Cooking-School Cook Book" of 1896; those early cookies had no raisins. Stella Parks, in "BraveTart" (2017), identifies the first oatmeal raisin recipe in Sun-Maid's 1915 "Souvenir California Raisin Recipe Book" and notes that Sun-Maid and Quaker Oats shared a marketing firm (as cited by Wikipedia). Quaker containers carried oatmeal raisin recipes from the early 1900s, the cookies were sold to Americans as health food for their fiber and vitamins, and Wikipedia adds dryly that their sugar and calories are about the same as a chocolate chip cookie's. Today Quaker publishes the recipe as "Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies."
🇺🇸 This one is American
The oat-box classic: butter, brown sugar and cinnamon with three cups of rolled oats and a cup of raisins, baked just until light golden for chewy middles.
🇩🇪 The original
Europe's holiday cookies came first: Nuremberg's spiced nut Lebkuchen, Scottish shortbread and Tuscan cantucci, recipes that German, Scottish and Italian immigrants carried to America. See the Nuremberg Elisenlebkuchen recipe.
🗳️ Chocolate chip or oatmeal raisin? Vote: Chocolate chip vs Oatmeal raisin →
📖 Origin story: Was the Chocolate Chip Cookie an Accident? Ruth Wakefield's Story →
Why it works the kitchen science
Pulled at light golden
Oatmeal cookies keep baking on the hot sheet, so taking them out while the centers look soft is what keeps them chewy.
More brown sugar than white
The molasses in brown sugar holds moisture and plays up the cinnamon.
Step by step
- Step 1
Heat the oven to 350°F.
- Step 2
Beat the butter and both sugars with a mixer on medium until creamy, about 2 minutes.
- Step 3
Beat in the eggs and vanilla.
- Step 4
Mix in the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt, then the oats and raisins.
- Step 5
Drop rounded tablespoons onto ungreased baking sheets about 2 inches apart.
- Step 6
Bake 8 to 10 minutes, until light golden brown at the edges; the centers should still look soft.
- Step 7
Cool 1 minute on the sheet, then move to a wire rack. Repeat with the remaining dough. Store tightly covered once cool.
Old-Fashioned Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
Serves 24 (2 cookies each) · about 48 cookies · 45 min total
Dough
- 1/2 cup plus 6 tbsp (14 tbsp, 198 g) butter, softened
- 3/4 cup (160 g) firmly packed brown sugar
- 1/2 cup (99 g) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups (180 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp salt (optional)
Mix-ins
- 3 cups (267 g) quick or old-fashioned rolled oats, uncooked
- 1 cup (149 g) raisins
Method
- Heat the oven to 350°F.
- Beat the butter and both sugars with a mixer on medium until creamy, about 2 minutes.
- Beat in the eggs and vanilla.
- Mix in the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt, then the oats and raisins.
- Drop rounded tablespoons onto ungreased baking sheets about 2 inches apart.
- Bake 8 to 10 minutes, until light golden brown at the edges; the centers should still look soft.
- Cool 1 minute on the sheet, then move to a wire rack. Repeat with the remaining dough. Store tightly covered once cool.
Adapted from Quaker Oats, "Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies," as written for 4 dozen. Gram weights are ours: oats at 89 g per cup (King Arthur's figure for rolled oats in its Classic Scottish Shortbread), the rest from King Arthur's chart. quakeroats.com. Ingredient list follows the source; the method is in our own words.
All sources (2)
Tips
- Quaker's bar version: press the dough into an ungreased 13 x 9-inch pan and bake 30 to 35 minutes; cool and cut into 24 bars.
- Plump hard raisins in hot water for 10 minutes and pat them dry.
- Quaker's high-altitude change: increase the flour to 1 3/4 cups.
The rules people argue about
What the sources agree on, what they don't, and what is just a good story.
- Fannie Farmer printed the first oatmeal cookie in 1896. Disputed detail: Jean Anderson says so (Wikipedia); Stella Parks says oatmeal cookies multiply through 1890s cookbooks in general.
- The first oatmeal raisin recipe was Sun-Maid's in 1915. Disputed: Stella Parks (via Wikipedia); a food site in our search results says Farmer's "Cape Cod oatmeal cookies" already had raisins and nuts. We did not check either book.
- Oatmeal cookies are health food. Folklore: Wikipedia says the reputation came from the oats and raisins, but the sugar and calories match a chocolate chip cookie.
- The lid recipe has changed over the years. Folklore: bloggers report different butter and sugar amounts on older lids; we did not see old packaging.
- Raisins vs chocolate chips. Folklore: Quaker itself offers chips as a swap (and drops the cinnamon).
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