Cooking - Bailey's Chewy Oatmeal Cookies

I made these last week.  Delicious! 

Recipe:  Bailey's Chewy Oatmeal Cookies

From:  Bailey Jane Martin

Ingredients:

1 cup shortening

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup white sugar  (I used 1/2 cup Splenda/sugar blend)

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt (optional)

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3 cups oats (regular oats make cookies more chewy)

1/2 cups chopped nuts / raisins (optional)

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg (optional)

 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven at 350 degrees. 

2. Beat shortening and sugars until creamy. (Medium-high on the mixer for a couple of minutes.)

 3. Add eggs and vanilla; mix well.  (Add eggs 1 at a time.)

4. Add combined flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg; mix well.

5. Stir in oats and nuts/raisins; mix well.

6. Drop (by tablespoon-full) onto ungreased cookie sheet.

7. Regular Cookies: Bake 10-12 minutes until golden brown. (or 9 minutes)

Bar cookies: Bake 30-35 munutes in ungreased 13 X 9 inch metal baking pan.

8.  Allow to cool on wire cooling rack.  Store in airtight container.  

Yield: I'm not sure how many cookies? Need to count next time :)

Notes: The cookies that baked for only 9 minutes were the best.  The bottom of the cookie was not as done - it was more chewy and tasty.  I didn't bake any of this batch longer than 10 minutes.

Notes to self:  I made these plain (no nuts, raisins, chocolate chips, etc.).  Bailey likes chopped nuts in her cookies, and Lockstep likes raisins in his oatmeal cookies.  

When making them for Bailey - add chopped nuts

When making them for Lockstep - add raisins