oatmeal raisin cookies - afraid of the oven, my ass

I used to go to California every summer and bask in the famous Orange County sun while playing (and by playing, I mean fighting with) my three younger girl cousins. Those were the days- endless weeks pretending to be frolicking among the wealthy, while really being tormented by these little dweebs because "I was the cooler cousin". Needless to say, things have greatly changed; years have passed, and egos have been burst (mine). Although I haven't spent a summer there for almost two years, I figured I'd fly down on my Spring Break to surprise the fam' of my new life changes!


The last they saw of me, I was the typical angst teenager who'd rather talk on my cell with boys than play dress up with my little cousins. To top it off, for an entire 18 years of my life I have been sheltered from using all hot objects including the oven (thanks, overbearing parents!). So the girl who used to be "afraid of the oven", is now the girl "who loves to bake".


Now, my smart family would obviously never believe such a tall tale without valid evidence. Proof of choice: two types of cookies (some leftover The Chewy / NY Times) and my famous oatmeal raisin cookies. I always feel that one choice of cookie is boring, so I tried to switch it up a bitch with the oats.


Now that I think about it, I probably subconsciously chose the oatmeal raisin cookie through a long lost memory. I can see the memory now- I'm about 10 or 11 or so, just going through my "fat" phase. I'm at my grandparents' (the ones who live in California) house. I wander downstairs to the kitchen in the middle of the night for a "little" snack. I find a pack of Little Debbie's and begin to devour these chewy circular objects. Oatmeal raisin, I see. Well, needless to say, I enjoyed them back in the day; and apparently (or I hoped so) my grandparents did as well.


Typical to true form, I stick with my pals at Cook's Illustrated. They haven't let me down thus far. I prepared the dough, and then later baked them, at my boyfriend's house. I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone- bonding time during gift baking.


The cookies came out great- as expected. My family, while in disbelief of the news, soon believed me after eating my cookies. See- people really do change! And also- I really can bake! Hehe.

---RECIPE---

Recipe found here.

english cream scones - don't let the raisins fool you for chocolate chips

Nothing sops up the pains from the previous night more than English scones! ...Or at least that was the excuse I used to convince my cousin to help me bake these. My very close cousin arrived the night before, just in time to partake in our gallivanting activities into the wee hours of the morning. The following morning I had to drag her out of bed and force her to participate in my ritual weekend bakings (I'm such a horrible host, right). I suppose scones really could cure the discomfort caused by a long night of secretive activities, but I was honestly more concerned with baking than the comfort of my cousin.


I was so excited we got to use my prized possession- my food processor!


Although you may be attention deprived, my lovely food processor, you are indeed greatly appreciated.


We formed the big sticky wad of dough into one large circle, and then divided it into fourths.


We couldn't come to a conclusive agreement as to what type of scones these should be. So by dividing into fourths (and knowing that the recipe makes 8 scones) we could have four different varieties of scones, with two of each type.


We decided upon raisin scones, chocolate chip scones, cheddar scones, and blueberry scones. All added variations were eyeballed and packed into the dough disorderly (Obviously not a typical "me" idea, but my cousin just so happened to be the girl version of my boyfriend, so I had to let it slide).



Enter specimen 1: raisin scones. After the allotted time in the oven, we took one out to test. We split it in half and noticed the insides were still raw and doughy. I didn't understand... I divided the dough into the correct portions and baked them for the appropriate time.



Enter #2: chocolate chip scones. After eating my fair share of raw scone dough, I made an executive decision to put them back in the oven. After about 5 minutes more or so, I deemed it the appropriate time to take them out. They were much better, although the outside was much harder and crustier than the gooey insides.



#3: blueberry scones- my cousin's idea. I'm not doubting her idea for the blueberries, just perhaps the application of them. The only available blueberries I had in my house were frozen, so I allowed her to do the appropriate thawing, microwaving, and drying of the berries. Let's just say that not only were these colored brightly purple in some parts, but also a little too wet. And by wet, I mean gooey and probably undercooked.



And finally, #4, the cheddar cheese scones. These were my second favorite (chocolate chip being number one- duh). My favorite story out of this whole incident was when I rushed my cousin out of the house to get to school on time (because I still had classes to attend, being the productive student and all) so she had to quickly grab a snack (because she needed to be fed every hour on the hour). Once she got to school, she took a bite of her assumed chocolate chip scone, only to realize it was a raisin scone. What a disappointment.

---RECIPE---
Taken from Cook's Illustrated

ingredients:
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon table salt
5 tablespoons unsalted butter , chilled and cut into 1/4-inch pieces
1/2 cup currants (replaced by our handfulls of random ingredients)
1 cup heavy cream

directions:
1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Place flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in large bowl or workbowl of food processor fitted with steel blade. Whisk together or pulse six times.
3. If making by hand, use two knives, a pastry blender, or your fingertips and quickly cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse meal, with a few slightly larger butter lumps. Stir in currants. If using food processor, remove cover and distribute butter evenly over dry ingredients. Cover and pulse 12 times, each pulse lasting 1 second. Add currants and pulse one more time. Transfer dough to large bowl.
4. Stir in heavy cream with rubber spatula or fork until dough begins to form, about 30 seconds.
5. Transfer dough and all dry, floury bits to countertop and knead dough by hand just until it comes together into a rough, slightly sticky ball, 5 to 10 seconds. Following illustrations below, cut scones into 8 wedges. Place wedges on ungreased baking sheet. (Baking sheet can be wrapped in plastic and refrigerated for up to 2 hours.)
6. Bake until scone tops are light brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on wire rack for at least 10 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

amount:
Makes 8 scones. (Next time I'd definitely make a little more, so each scone will be smaller and bake more thoroughly)

oatmeal raisin/chocolate-chip cookies - does toasting the oats really work?

Just like last time, my boyfriend's sister and I spent her last night home baking oatmeal raisin cookies. We baked two batches of the Quaker Oats' Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookie recipe (one with raisins, and one with chocolate chips) so she could bring them back to school and share them with her roommates and her boyfriend (who luckily for her, is an oatmeal raisin lover). Since they were such a hit last time, I didn't suggest we bake the Cook's Illustrated recipe I made at my parents' house (which I happened to love), but I did suggest we toast the oats for at least one of the batches.


Every time I bake cookies at my boyfriend's house, I have to nuke the butter for a while in the microwave just to get it soft enough to mix because they don't have a handmixer. I used to leave my handmixer in the trunk of my car, believe it or not, so I would be able to whip up a batch of anything while I'm away from home, but too bad I forgot that day.


His sister and I had to switch off mixing because our arms would get so tired trying to incorporate the chunky butter. Anyways, it all eventually got mixed, and we prepared our first batch (which was the chocolate chip and toasted oats) to bake in the oven.


Horrible lighting, I know, but there was nothing I could do. The cookies on the other hand tasted pretty damn good. I think oatmeal cookies go better with chocolate than raisins, personally.


Our second batch was with raisins and the oats were not toasted. I kind of just wanted to see if there was a noticeable difference between the two.


These raisin cookies had a little different texture than the chocolate chip ones. They were very similar to the last time we baked these- which were extremely soft and gooey and almost not even fully baked. I'm not sure if it was because of the non-toasting of the oats (because the chocolate chip ones were not like that) or it was because the oats weren't thoroughly mixed (which could also be the case considering I was the one who mixed this batch and I'm terrified of overmixing).


You know that I had to steal a few cookies to take home for myself.


Here is one of the oatmeal raisin cookies (a nice one that wasn't gooey or falling apart).


The oatmeal raisin cookie was very soft on the inside, which really reminded me of the last batch we made together. The only difference was that the outside was a lot firmer and it didn't crumble when you picked it up.


Overall, I thought it tasted good. I'm not sure which cookie is better- this one or the Cook's Illustrated one. To come to that conclusion, I'd probably have to do a side-by-side taste test (memo for the future!).


I was really excited to try the oatmeal chocolate chip cookie again, because I remember I enjoyed it so much the night before.


Ohmygosh, these tasted sooo good, even better than the raisin ones (maybe I'm just biased, because I'm a chocolate whore).


These cookies were a lot less gooey and a lot more crunchy than the raisins. Perhaps it was because of the toasting, although I'm not too sure because I could have just mixed the other batch incorrectly.


Usually I'm a soft and chewy cookie type of gal, but sometimes (such as this, and also the Cook's Illustrated oatmeal raisin cookie) I prefer a little bite. The raisin ones we made were good because they were chewy, but these chocolate chip ones were even better because they weren't. Strange right? I def need to do a taste-test to come to a full conclusive decision as to what is better- toasting or not-toasting.

---RECIPE---
Taken from the lid of a Quaker Oats Can (Not the same recipe they put on the Quaker Oats website).

ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1+1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups of Quaker Oats (we toasted one batch of these for about 20 minutes)
1 cup raisins (or 1 cup chocolate chips)

directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Beat together butter and sugars until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla extract; beat well.
3. Add combined flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; mix well.
4. Slowly stir in oats and then raisins.
5. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto an ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown. Cool 1 minute on sheet, remove to wire rack.

amount:
Makes about 4 dozen cookies. (Lies! We did not make that much, and I didn't even eat any batter)