My Dad's Oatmeal Raisin Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies

My dad has been making me these cookies for as long as I can remember. They are so soft and delicious. It's difficult not to devour the whole batch in one sitting. I kid you not. These cookies actually held me over on a trip to China that I just recently took. I was 4 months pregnant and not into eating anything. Especially weird Chinese things. (I'm usually not a picky eater...blame it on the baby, I will.) So anyway, dad made us a bunch of these cookies, and I ate them everyday till they ran out while we were traveling around China.

This is me at the Forbidden City

Lets start with an ingredients/tools list shall we?

What you will need:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter softened

(take out of fridge a couple of hours before baking)

1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1.5 cups white flour
1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

(DO NOT FORGET THE CINNAMON)
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups oatmeal

1.5-2 cups dark chocolate chips
1 cup raisins (opt)

This recipe makes about 4 dozen cookies

Mixing bowl

Spoon

(Wooden)

1 cup

1/2 cup

1 teaspoon

an oven

a cookie sheet

parchment paper (optional)

Lets preheat the oven to 375 F now that we've got all our crap together.

In your mixing bowl, cream together 1 cup of white sugar, 1 cup brown sugar, and two sticks of butter. (If you have not left your butter out to soften this will be next to impossible. You can try to soften the butter in the microwave, but you will usually end up with melted butter instead of softened. Bottom line? Let your butter soften ahead of time foo'!) This mixture will be a little stiff but will loosen up once you add the eggs and vanilla

BEFORE MIXED

AFTER MIXED

Next add two eggs and 1 tsp. of vanilla and mix together. After this step the batter should be nice and smooth

Mix in 1 1/2 cups flour, 1/2 tsp of salt, 1 tsp of cinnamon and 1 tsp of baking soda. The batter will start to get thicker now, and harder to mix.



Add 3 cups of oatmeal and stir until combined. The batter will begin to get very difficult to stir. This is normal.


Add 2 cups of dark chocolate chips and 1 cup of raisins.



This is what your batter should look like when complete

Spray your cookie sheet with cooking spray or line with parchment paper. I didn't have any today but parchment paper is a good way to save your pans. It's not good for the environment though. Neither is the spray can either I suppose. It's so hard!!!!! Maybe the best way to grease a pan would be to wipe it down with shortening. I wonder if shortening is bad for the environment somehow. I guess even with the shortening you have to use a paper towel to wipe it on with. OH! Who knows?

I used a tablespoon to make my cookies. They are just the right size that way. Keep the cookies about two inches apart. In my oven they bake up to just perfect in about 10 minutes on 375 F. The recipe I was following said 12 minutes so I would start with around 9 or 10 and keep and eye on them. They should be a little brown around the edges but still soft to the touch. They will firm up while sitting.

And here is the finished product. They aren't the prettiest cookies in the world but they are chewy and delicious.