Oatmeal Cookies – 3 Ways 

Adapted from The Joy of Cooking. Because I had it, I used 1/3 + 1/4 cups each: Whole Wheat Pastry Flour, Bread Flour, All-Purpose Flour, but you could also use 1-3/4ths cup of AP flour. To the flour, whisk in: 3/4tsp baking soda, 3/4 tsp baking powder, 1/2tsp salt, 1/2tsp cinnamon, and 1/2tsp nutmeg (if grating fresh, use half this.
In a separate bowl cream together 2 sticks unsalted butter, 1-1/2 cups packed brown sugar, 1/4cup white sugar. I did this by hand, but you could use the paddle attachment in your stand mixer. Once you have a smooth butter & sugar mixture, break 2 eggs in a bowl and stir in 2-1/2tsp vanilla, making sure to combine fairly evenly, breaking the yolks. Beat this in with the sugar mixture, half of the egg at a time.
To this mixture, add in the flour, also in two parts. You want to be careful to not over-mix this once the flour is involved. If you’re using your stand mixer, you might want to get out the wooden spoon and do this part by hand. It will be okay if some flour is still showing.

At this point you could just add in 1c chopped raisins and 3-1/4 cups of rolled oats, but I was making a gift so I wanted some more variety.

I broke my batter into three separate parts, each weighing about 300g each. Two each of these parts I added the following:

Batch 1: 3oz Voseges Dark Bacon Bar diced small, and 1/2 cup rolled oats.

Batch 2: 1/3 cup chopped pecans, 1/3 cup chopped dried cherries and 1/2 cup rolled oats.

Batch 3: 1/3c chopped raisins and 1cup rolled oats. If you can find some raisins that aren’t in a box, I highly suggest them, Our local bulk food store sells some amazing plump raisins. I diced them because I am going for small cookies.

Put plastic wrap on the surface of all of these cookie doughs, refrigerate for an hour, or up to 24 hours, as much time as you can spare.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Scoop out your dough with a number 40 scoop, or into balls about 1-1/2 tablespoons in size. Bake for 6 minutes, rotate your cookie sheets in the oven. Bake another 6 minutes and then check them every 2 minutes until they are brown at all around the edges. Let cool 5 minutes on the cookie sheets.

Put these in a festive tin and serve to your hard-to-shop-for relatives.