A few weeks ago when my friend's daughter Joanna asked me to make some baked goods for a reception at her office, one of her specific requests was for an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. I politely suggested that she reconsider that particular item, since I don't have an oatmeal cookie recipe that I'm really crazy about. I did pick up an okay oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe from the Los Angeles Times Culinary SOS column years ago (the recipe is from the Scripps Clinic in La Jolla; it was originally printed in the column on April 9, 1987, and reprinted on May 15, 2002), but it's never been one of my favorites.A few months ago I spotted another interesting looking oatmeal cookie recipe in the Culinary SOS column, this one from Auntie Em's Kitchen in Eagle Rock. The recipe caught my eye because of the somewhat unusual addition of wheat germ. Also, I liked the fact that the recipe called for golden raisins. One of the unfortunate mixups that I have often witnessed with oatmeal raisin cookies occurs when people see the cookies from a distance and get excited, only to be let down when they get up close and realize that the dark blobs that they thought were chocolate chips are actually just dried fruit. Very tragic.
Last night I finally remembered to buy some wheat germ, and I was able to give the Auntie Em's recipe a try. The recipe says to use 1/4 cup of batter per cookie, which seemed to me to be pretty excessive. That would be a #16 scoop worth of batter, which is the same size scoop I use to make regular-sized muffins. Instead, I used a #30 scoop, which is about 2 tablespoons. Still, the resulting cookies were very large, about 3.5 inches in diameter.The cookies spread quite a bit during baking and I discovered through trial and error that they kept their shape a lot better if the dough was chilled in the refrigerator for a bit before baking. The resulting cookies were thin and extremely chewy, with a crisp exterior. Because the cookies were so thin, they were slightly fragile and needed careful handling. They were also a bit homely, given their monochromatic color scheme and lumpy bumpy top surface. But the cookies were tasty enough and their unusual chewy texture gets an A. I'm going to keep looking for the perfect oatmeal cookie recipe, but this one will do just fine until I find it!
Recipe: "Oatmeal Raisin Cookies from Auntie Em's Kitchen," from the Los Angeles Times Culinary SOS Column, February 25, 2009.
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