Recipe: Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Any fans of the TV show Friends out there? There must be, because there don’t seem to be many people left who haven’t at least watched a few episodes of the show. It used to be my absolute favourite TV show for years, and I know all of the episodes pretty much by heart. So, when my boyfriend gave me Friends – The Official Cookbook for my birthday, it made for a pretty perfect gift! It’s full of recipes from the series, like Rachel’s famous meat trifle (“it tastes like feet!”) and Ross’s turkey sandwich (“MY SANDWICH?!”), and last weekend, my boyfriend and I tried one of them: Phoebe’s oatmeal raisin cookies.

We’ve been together for almost four years, but this was the first time we ever baked something together! It was a lot of fun and the end result was really tasty. I’d never baked anything with oatmeal before, so I was excited to try these cookies and I wasn’t disappointed. I did change the recipe a tiny bit, and I converted it from cups to grams. That’s my only gripe concerning this cookbook: it’s all in cups, and that’s not a very accurate way of measuring ingredients when you’re baking. Apart from that, I think it’s a wonderful book and it makes for a great Christmas gift, too.

These cookies are a great snack to go with a warm cup of tea or coffee and I think I’m going to be making them quite often. Now, let’s move on to the recipe!

You’ll need… (for 24 cookies)

• 115 g unsalted butter, softened
• 50 g granulated sugar
• 110 g brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla flavouring
• 1 egg
• 110 g plain flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 130 g rolled oats
• 60 g raisins
• parchment paper
• baking tray
• and an oven, of course! These cookies need to be baked at 190 °C (don’t forget to preheat your oven!)

So, let’s get baking!

1. Mix together butter, sugar, vanilla and eggs Take a large bowl and mix together the butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, vanilla flavouring and eggs. I used a handheld mixer for this step, but you can also use a stand mixer or a simple whisk.

2. Mix together dry ingredients Take a second bowl and sieve the flour above it. Then also add the baking soda, salt, cinnamon, rolled oats and raisins and mix it all together using a wooden spoon.

3. Add dry mix to wet mix Now it’s time to add the dry mixture to the bowl with the wet mixture and mix them together into a dough. I do recommend using an electric mixer for this. I used my handheld mixer again, with the dough hook attachments. Mixing the dough should take only a few minutes.

4. Divide dough over baking tray Time to actually make the cookies! First, line you baking tray with parchment paper. Then, using a tablespoon, scoop little bits of the dough out of the bowl and roll them into little balls with your hands. Place them on the baking tray, leaving enough space between the balls so the cookies can spread a little. My scoops were each about two tablespoons worth of dough (maybe a little less – I didn’t measure them out precisely) and that provided about 24 cookies.

5. Bake! Once your baking tray is filled with little balls of dough, place it into your preheated oven and bake the cookies for about 12 to 15 minutes, until they’ve become golden brown. Take the baking tray out of the oven and the let the cookies cool for about ten minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to let them cool down completely.

And there you have it – your own delicious oatmeal raisin cookies! Enjoy!