Oatmeal Cookies

Oatmeal Cookies


I've been complaining self-righteously about the existence of The Hollywood Cookie Diet for the past week or so, but I'll let you in on a little secret; ever since I baked a batch of Gram's oatmeal cookies, I've been accidentally doing my own version of the cookie diet. They're just such tasty little cookie bites that I can't help but eat a few of them without realizing it, and then I'm not hungry for a real meal anymore, so I just eat one more cookie and leave it at that. Oops.

I don't really think that the cookies are good for me, but if I'm going to end up overdosing on cookies, I could do worse. When you look at the ratio of ingredients, you'll see that they're a bit more than 50% oatmeal/raisin/walnut, which isn't that bad. That's what I've been telling myself, anyway, and I'll happily stick to my illusions about these cookies, thankyouverymuch.

I laughed a little when I read the ingredient list for these cookies. I had never heard of using cake mix in cookies, but my gram has a few recipes that do that. Even though she has plenty of recipes that are completely from scratch, she loved her pre-packaged shortcuts. Quite a few of her recipes start out with pre-made soups or pastry, and my all time favorite birthday cake recipe starts as a box of Duncan Hines yellow cake mix. No, that isn't really an endorsement for the brand, but my gram was very particular about brands, so it had to be that specific box of cake mix for her to make a birthday cake.

She doesn't specify the brand of mix for these cookies, but I picked up the D. Hines because I figured that would be the one she would have in her pantry. I'm sure the yellow cake mix of whatever brand you feel loyalty towards to will yield identical results.



INGREDIENTS
1 egg
1/4 Cup water
1/2 cup brown sugar (packed)
1 cup margarine
1 1/2 TSP cinnamon
1 pkg. yellow cake mix
2 1/4 cups quick-cook oats
2 cups raisins
2 cups walnuts (chopped)

Pre-heat oven to 375.

Before I began, I put the raisins in a bowl and covered them with warm water, to let them get a little plump. Not required, but it's nice if you have the time and spare bowl.


Beat together egg, water, margarine, sugar, cinnamon and 1/2 of cake mix (dry) until smooth.



Stir in remaining cake mix, oats, raisins and nuts. I found it was easier to fold this in, as it kept getting stuck in my whisk.


Drop batter by teaspoons on to an ungreased cookie sheet. Alternately, wet hands and roll into small balls and place on sheet.


Bake 10 to 12 minutes, until lightly golden.

Cool slightly. Don't leave them for too long though, or they'll begin to stick to the sheet!


Remove from baking sheet to rack to finish cooling.


These are really good, solid oatmeal cookies. Be careful, it's really easy to fill up on them!

Comments