Steel Cut Oats & Raisin Cookies

While shopping at my local grocer the other day, I ran across a box of Quaker Steel Cut Oats and couldn’t help but wonder what all the hype was about.  “You just use it to make oatmeal. Right?”  But my curiosity got the best of me, and I ended up purchasing a box to take home.
Fast forward to a chilly morning soon afterwards, when I pulled the unopened box from the cupboard and proceeded to whip up a hot steamy bowl of old fashion oatmeal with butter, brown sugar, and raisins.  I made the oatmeal, and in the process, I also learned some things I hadn’t previously known about steel cut oats.  To my amazement, steel cut oats are very different from the kind I was used to eating: for one thing, oatmeal made using steel cut oats takes considerably longer to prepare (with a cooking time of 25-30 minutes, compared to 1-5 minutes for the standard rolled oat kind).  With steel cut oats, what you give up in the way of speed of preparation, however, is more than offset by increased flavor and texture.  To me, steel cut oats are very reminiscient of grains such as barley or quinoa in appearance, and also have an awesome, nutty flavor that really sets them apart from your common household variety  of oats.
Since I enjoyed the new spin on the old, hot cereal, breakfast preparation, I later decided,  just for fun, to experiment with substituting some steel cut oats for the standard variety of oats I’d previously used in my classic Oatmeal Raisin cookie recipe, making no other adjustments (i.e. no increase in cooking time).  To my delight, the steel cut oats gave my old (already delicious) classic recipe a real shot in the arm in flavor and texture, and amazingly they also baked up just fine using the original bake time.
Because they’re so simple to make, and too delicious not to share, I’m sharing my recipe today so you can also enjoy them.
I hope you’ll and make them for yourself at home and share the recipe with others.

 Steel Cut Oats and Raisin Cookies:

Ingredients:
3/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 cups rolled oats
1 cup steel cut oats
1 cup raisins  Note: Raisins are optional, if like, oh, I dunno, you forget once to add them, with no real adverse affect.  (Ask me something how I know…)
Prep time: 10-15 minutes.
Cooking time: 10-12 minutes per batch (based on your oven and desired level of browning)
026 cropped
 Directions
  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
  2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and both kinds of sugar until smooth.  Add the eggs and vanilla to the mixture and beat until fluffy.
  3. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt, and gradually add to the wet ingredients, incorporating fully.
  4. Stir in both varieties of oats, and the raisins, and drop by tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets for baking.
  5. Bake 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden brown. Cool slightly, remove from sheet to wire rack. Cool completely.
  6. Eat and enjoy!:)
Finished oatmeal raisen cookies
(Recipe makes appx. 3 dozen cookies)

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