Recipe: Oatmeal Cookies and Tips for Chewy Cookies

I couldn't find a clone recipe for Archway Oatmeal Cookies on the Internet. I found this recipe that says they were "chewy." I hope they are. Good luck!

OATMEAL COOKIES

1 1/2 cups flour
1/5 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
16 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
3 cups old fashioned rolled oats, uncooked
1 1/2 cups raisins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Whisk flour, baking powder, nutmeg and salt together in a bowl; set aside.

In a mixer, beat butter until creamy. Add sugars, beat until fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Add dry ingredients in and fold in (don't overmix - important for soft cookies) Add oats and raisins (don't overmix)

Portion out into balls, using 2 tablespoons batter for each, and roll, then place on baking pan (parchment paper preferred) at least two inches apart.

Bake for 22-25 minutes until edges are golden brown, rotating 1/2 way through cooking. Let cookies cool on sheets for 2 minutes, then transfer to cooling rack and cool for at least 30 minutes.

Adapted from source: Cook's Illustrated

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Plus some notes from Alton Brown on Chewy (Chocolate Chip) Cookies: (unfortunately he was talking about chocolate chip cookies) but I wonder if the principles are the same for oatmeal cookies?

1) Reducing cooking time really doesn't work well ... you need a recipe designed for chewy cookies.

2) Using cake flour will make more of a crumbly, airy cookie ... not good eats. Chewy is caused by, among other things, gluten content. You're going in the exact opposite direction that you want to go because cake flour has a low gluten content.

3) You're going to flatten the cookies out and make them thinner ... with the cooking time in the standard recipe, they'll probably cook faster and you'll end up having cookies about the same texture.

The tried and true methods of chewy cookie making are as follows:

* using bread flour
* substituting some of the white sugar (hard) for brown sugar (soft)
* substituting some of the liquid for egg yolk

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A Note from Betsy at Recipelink:

Recipes previously shared for Chewy Oatmeal Cookies (click here)