Baking Oatmeal Raisin Cookies (Minus the Oatmeal and Raisins)

Caramel Cookie Recipe:

Adaptation of a recipe from The Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker

Ingredients:

• ½ cup butter
• ½ cup brown sugar
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon double-acting baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt

Steps

• Preheat oven to 350°
• Cream: Butter
• Add and cream well:
  • Firmly packed brown sugar
  • Granulated sugar
• Combine and beat in until smooth
  • Egg
  • Vanilla
  • Milk
• Sift together and add to the above ingredients
  • All-purpose flour
  • Baking soda
  • Double-acting baking powder
  • Salt
• If you’re going to add something extra to your cookies, such as nuts, dates, or chocolate, add it here! You can eyeball it or use about ½ a cup, or ⅓ of a cup each if you’re adding two ingredients.
• Beat the mixture well. Take a spoon and use it to drop the cookies two inches apart on a well-greased cookie sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes or until light brown.

This recipe yields about 20 cookies, and should take around an hour to make from start to finish. Good luck trying this recipe at home. It’s sure to be a favorite!

Cookies. The true classic staple across households everywhere. To quote from Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking, “Common cookies are simple pleasures, but the microcosm of all cookies is a summa of the baker’s art.” From chewy chocolate chip to the delicious snickerdoodle, there are so many different varieties to choose from.

However, sometimes the simplest tastes can be the best. This basic, easy, hassle-free cookie recipe is very versatile, and can be paired with a variety of different ingredients, or enjoyed on its own.

When I take these cookies out of the oven, the wonderful aroma of cookies baking hits me. There are hints of vanilla and butter, and combined with the warmth coming from the oven, it creates a wonderful, nostalgic feeling. Biting into it, I experience a buttery texture, with an almost caramel taste rising from the overall cookie–the elements of brown sugar and vanilla come together to form a wonderful mix of flavors.

My mom recalled how I first stumbled upon creating this particular cookie recipe.

“I remember way back in the beginning we made oatmeal raisin cookies, and your dad can’t have oatmeal and raisins, so you took them out,” she said.  “Dad loved your cookies, since there’s very few things that he can eat, and he felt so happy that you altered the recipe of your cookies to fit his diet. He felt very cared about.”

When my Dad ate them, his face lit up: “These are really good!” he exclaimed. 

So, I decided to make another batch just like it for the whole family.

My mom remarked on the qualities of the cookies that she loved the most. She said,  “I love them because they’re huge! And they taste of caramel and they remind me of how Pepperidge Farm Bordeaux cookies taste. And Bordeaux cookies were my dad’s favorite, so it’s like everything came full circle.”

As you can see, everyone loved them, and I now bake these cookies at every important family event, and sometimes just for fun. I’ve added extra elements to them every once in a while, such as chopped up dates, which always go over well. My mom said, “The cookies are so good because they’re homemade. I can taste the love in them!” The recipe is now a staple in our household, and I hope it can become one in yours too.