The Perfect Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

I used to have a Quaker Oatmeal recipe booklet.  My sister had given it to me years ago after requesting two free copies from Quaker.  (This was back in the day when we didn’t browse recipes online.)  As I wasn’t a huge oatmeal fan, I only ever used the oatmeal raisin cookie recipe.  Every time I baked the cookies, I “modified” them by throwing in chocolate chips.  That made the cookies bearable for my non-oatmeal-loving-chocoholic self.

Sadly, I trashed my copy of the booklet two years ago because I thought I would never use it again, and my sister can’t find hers.  So last year, I printed Quaker’s recipe for Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies and assumed that this was the same recipe I used to have.  Unfortunately, the cookies disappointed me.  They were very flat and quite frankly, ugly.  I am very much partial to fluffy-looking, soft cookies.

Hubby loves oatmeal raisin cookies — they are his favorite — so I set out to find a replacement recipe.  The one from  A Good Cookie by Tish Boyle yielded exactly I wanted.  The unexpected ingredient (at least to me) is shredded coconut.

I didn’t add chocolate chips because Hubby wouldn’t touch the cookies if I did, but my non-oatmeal-loving-chocoholic self is actually eating two or three of these a day.  Which is almost a miracle considering that I don’t usually like oatmeal raisin.  Yup, pretty soon pigs will start flying.

Heath Bar Cookies

A great cookie for those who love Heath Bars!  Recipe from Simply Recipes.

If You Like Green Tea Ice-Cream…

…then I highly recommend trying the Green Tea Sweets recipe so kindly provided by Kelli of Amai Tea and Bake House!

I heard of Amai’s tea cookies through the blog world quite awhile ago, and I actually purchased a box for my mother-in-law as a gift. But I personally never ate them before. So when I came across the recipe link on Julie’s blog, I was thrilled. I found the matcha (powdered green tea) easily at my local Japanese market, but Kelli provides an online source if you can’t buy it in your area. I couldn’t find a 2″ leaf cookie cutter that I liked on the Internet, so I settled for a 2.5″ heart cutter. The recipe is really easy and when I was combining the ingredients, the scent of the matcha reminded me of green tea ice-cream. The cookies have just the right amount of sweetness, too. This one is definitely, definitely a keeper!!! Thank you for sharing, Kelli!

Lemon Cookies

Lemon Cookies from the April 2007 issue of Every Day with Rachel Ray. A tad on the sweet side, so I might experiment with using less sugar next time, but the recipe is still a keeper!

Coconut Macaroons For My Cookie Jar

Recipe from Baking Illustrated.