Dried Cherry Oatmeal Cookies

What if I told you that I took a Channel design and reworked it just a little bit to fit my shoulders and my smaller waist. Instead of a white belt, I added in a red belt, and suddenly people that like the original design took a second and third look.

That will never happen because I flunked sewing in high school. I got a 67 for a very awful dress using a Sear’s pattern. It was a white, sleeveless shift that burns in my memory because I am the only person in the classroom who was so sewing challenged that I kept ripping out stay stitching. You sewers just laughed out loud didn’t you. Stay stitching is just stitching around the cut pattern, so that threads do not pull. It gets cut off in the end and does not matter. I actually got a zipper in the dress and even wore it out in public once just to salute my own effort. Years later, I purchased a fairly decent sewing machine and had such a hard time threading it, I gave it away unused!

In my own defense I custom made all the draperies in my home, even the ten feet tall ones with lining. No one knows I glued everything together and used that stitching magic. I found a way to get what I want in spite of deficiencies.

The moral of my story is that there is no Channel dress, but there is a designer cookie from Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bakery cookbook, sitting in a pretty dish with just a small enough adjustment to make it my own. I’ve been lucky enough to eat  at the Bouchon bakery  and the Bouchon Restaurant in Napa, so this book is most assuredly on my Christmas wish list. I’ve read nothing but rave reviews of this cookbook and I’m ordering one today. One thing I already know is that Thomas Keller says to throw your measuring cups away and use a food scale, which is more accurate and takes one of the many finicky variables out of baking.

The recipe is fabulous. It’s the right texture, with a crispy outside and a chewy inside. Instead of a mixture of two kind of raisins, I used golden raisins and the most wonderful dried bing cherries I’ve ever tasted, purchased at Costco.  They are so large, they have to be chopped up. They are so sweet, you can cut back on the sugar in the cookies, something I tend to do anyway.

These are my go to oatmeal cookie forever. I saw it the recipe at Eva Bakes. I’m going to tell you right now, go ahead and make a double batch. You can freeze the dough or freeze the cookies, but it probably won’t come to that. You can do what my husband likes to do and add chocolate chips or do what I love to do and add a little bacon.

Print Recipe

5 from 1 vote

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, Crispy, Chewy Perfection

The best oatmeal cookie adapted from Thomas Keller's Bouchon Bakery Cookbook, using golden raisins and dried cranberries.

Prep Time20 minutes mins

Cook Time18 minutes mins

Total Time38 minutes mins

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Ingredients

• 1 cup + 1 teaspoon all-purpose flour / 144 grams
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon / 7 grams
• 1-1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1-1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 cup + 3 1/2 tablespoons lightly packed light brown sugar / 140 grams for original recipe
• 1/4 cup plus 1 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar / 69 grams
• 11 tablespoons unsalted butter room temperature / 155 grams
• 1 egg / 62 grams
• 1-1/4 tsp vanilla paste you can use pure vanilla extract
• 2 cups old-fashioned oats do not use instant / 155 grams
• 1/2 cup golden raisins
• 1/2 cup chopped cherries or cranberries mix the fruit to your preference to add up to 156 grams

Instructions

Dry Ingredients

• Whisk together cinnamon, baking soda, salt flour in a bowl. Set aside.

Wet Ingredients

• Cream butter at medium speed.
• Add in both sugars and mix on medium for 3-4 minutes. See notes.
• Add egg.
• Add vanilla paste or extract.
• Add dry ingredients a little at a time.
• Add in raisins and dried cherries.
• Roll into even sized cookies (about 31 grams).
• Cook for 15 to 18 minutes (check at 15) in oven of 325 degrees. Cool completely.
• You can freeze these cookies. Let them defrost In one layer at room temperature.

Please follow me on instagram. If you make this recipe,  please tag me #spinachtiger.

If you love this recipe, please give it five stars. It means a lot. xoxo