the Oatiest Oatmeal Cookies Recipe

By popular demand, this is the best way to share this recipe with friends and family. Enjoy!

Oatiest Oatmeal Cookie
Recipe courtesy Alton Brown, 2010

Prep Time:15 minInactive Prep Time:–Cook Time:12 min
Level:
Easy
Serves:
3 dozen cookies
Ingredients
16 ounces old fashioned rolled oats
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
10 ounces unsalted butter, room temperature
6 ounces dark brown sugar
3 1/2 ounces granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
8 ounces raisins
Directions
Heat the oven to 375 degrees F. Spread oats in a single layer on half-sheet pans and bake until lightly toasted, about 20 minutes. Remove the oats from the oven and let cool for 2 to 3 minutes.

Grind 8 ounces of the toasted oats in a food processor for 3 minutes or until the consistency of whole-wheat flour. Add the baking powder, cinnamon and salt and pulse to combine.

Combine the butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer, and mix on medium speed until light in color, about 3 minutes. Stop once to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Reduce the mixer speed to the lowest speed, add the egg and vanilla and mix to combine. Stop to scrape down the sides of the bowl, if necessary.

With the mixer on the lowest speed, slowly add the oat mixture, the remaining 8 ounces of oats and the raisins until just combined. Stop once to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Scoop the dough with a 1-ounce ice cream scoop or disher onto parchment-lined half-sheet pans, leaving 2 inches between each mound. Bake the cookies for 12 minutes, rotating the pans after 6 minutes, until the cookies begin to brown around the edges. Remove the pans from the oven and let the cookies cool on the pans for 2 minutes. Transfer the cookies to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Printed from FoodNetwork.com on Fri Nov 19 2010© 2010 Television Food Network, G.P. All Rights Reserved

Best Bread Ever!

This recipe takes two days and creates a handy loaf of homemade bread, unit price per loaf is less than 50 Cents, 1 loaf can be a meal.

Ingredients –

  • 3C Water at 100°F
  • 2 Packets of regular Yeast
  • 6.5C of AP Flour
  • 2 tbsp Salt

Procedure – Wake up Yeast in 100° Water for 2-4 minutes. Stir vigorously to get them all distributed evenly. Put salt and flour in mixing bowl, mix them up. Pour water and yeast into mixing bowl and mix until the entire mass is turned into dough and there is no loose flour on the walls of the mixing bowl. If you have a stand mixer, dough hook attachment, 10 seconds for dry mix on 4, then likely 2-5 minutes on 4 to get the dough to form while pouring in the water and yeast. When the dough is completely formed, scoop out and put in a soup pot or plastic bin big enough to handle 4x it’s starting volume. Place pot or bin on countertop and cover. Leave it for 2 hours, then put it in the fridge overnight. Next morning take out the bin or pot, with a serrated knife hack it into 4-5 equal pieces. Prepare a work surface, put down some more flour, grab a hunk of dough and knead it into a ball, you want a taut drumhead surface and a bunched up bottom. Lube up cookie sheet, put bread on cookie sheet spaced an inch or more apart from each other. Melt half stick of butter, brush onto bread loaves. Fill oven-safe bowl with water, heat oven to 350°F. When oven is at 350°F, put bowl of water at the bottom rack, then bread on next highest rack. Bake for 40 minutes. Bread will be fragrant about 30 minutes in and will be an early warning that you are getting close. Pull at 40 minutes, bread should have a thump-able crust.

You can multiply this recipe as much as you like, either for your arm+mixing spoon or the size of your mixer. Recommend that if you want to multiply, mix in batches and set in batches. The dough is viable for 2 weeks in the refrigerator, the longer it goes the more complicated the flavors get as the yeast complete their life-cycle. You can dole out whatever shape bread you want, I prefer the 5 loaf approach because they are handy and makes enough for 4 people + 1 bakers loaf. You could incorporate mixins if you wanted or cover in cheeses or augment the butter or switch fats and go with olive or peanut oil to brush-on or you could skip the fats altogether. Up to you. One important thing to note, this bread requires absolutely NO KNEADING. Bread needs gluten to form properly, gluten can either be kneaded in or ‘waited for’. I elect to wait for gluten to form, makes for a much moister interior and a more satisfying texture.

This recipe is from the “Artisan Bread” recipe available on splendidtable.org. I heard it on the program, made it once, fell in love. Everyone should listen to The Splendid Table! With these loaves made, you can have a loaf or two a day and if you are trying to eat without chemicals and to do so incredibly cheaply, you cannot go wrong. I imagine that if you hollowed out these loaves and put in a thick soup, you’d be able to make bread-bowl-soup, quite delicious, for pennies on the dollar for what you’d pay at Panera, for example.

With good clean water, you know EXACTLY what you are eating. No preservatives, no chemicals, nothing but yeast, water, salt and flour. If you want to use different flours, feel free. Don’t know what happens if you use something that isn’t as balanced as AP Flour. Bread Flour might make a really rough-and-tumble loaf, pastry flour would probably just puddle or flop about. If you attempted to use a different starch, like arrowroot or rice flour, I have no idea what might happen, no gluten, no structure *shrug*