The Perfect Oatmeal Cookie

Today was a day of cravings. I chalk it up to not sleeping well last night. I was up too late and then couldn't stay asleep so then I was up too early. When I'm sleep deprived I crave, crave, crave carbs and sugar. I'm sure there's some scientific explanation for this but I've got an English degree so I'm better at reading a recipe than understanding the science of cravings. So today was full of carb indulgences and bedtime will come early.

Tonight Sweetheart was looking for a chili recipe and, lo and behold, my childhood oatmeal cookie recipe card shook itself loose. Sometimes I believe in fate, mostly I believe in Karma. Tonight I'm putting my money on fate since the perfect snack recipe fell into my lap.

The story on these is that the recipe belonged to my maternal great grandmother, was passed to my grandmother who scaled it for her 5 children and my mom inherited it. I can remember making trays upon trays of these as a kid and now that I look at the recipe I realize it had been tripled! Here's the secret perfect family oatmeal cookie recipe. Don't worry, I've re-scaled it to its original proportions so you won't have to make quite so many.

Values from Sparkpeople.com

Perfect Oatmeal Cookies
Yield-2 dozen

1 c. AP flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c. butter- melted
1/4 c. sugar
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 egg
2 tbs milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 c. rolled oats

Preheat oven to 375 f (190 c)
Mix all ingredients thoroughly except oats
Add oats 1/2 c. at a time, stirring between additions. Dough will be very stiff.
Drop 2 tbs dough balls onto a lined cookie sheet. I used a #40 ice cream scoop which holds 2 tbs.
Bake 8-11 minutes. 8 minutes will be barely underbaked for a chewy texture (my favorite). 10-11 minutes results in a crumblier cookie.
If you underbake, let  the cookies cool on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes to allow the bottoms to set before transferring to a cooling rack. If you're using a longer bake time transfer to a rack immediately.


I'm sure these would be great with raisins, chocolate chips or nuts but I love the sugar/butter ratio without any other flavors and the chewy texture of these. The batter's not half bad either for a quick carb and sugar hit.


Pin It