The recipe says “butter” and “mix wet elements” and "mix dry elements” and “mix the two mixtures”, but I always want less work and faster results, so I place all the ingredients into a large mixing bowl; use the dough-beater blades for about a minute, then finish mixing by squeezing the dough between my fingers for a minute or two – until I detect no lumps of margarine (yes, not butter)
For immediate cookies, pre-heat the oven to 375f, but for batch processing, store the dough, tamped down, in sealed margarine tubs.
(1) ½ cup cooking margarine
(2) ¼ cup oil
(3) 1 egg
(4) 1 tsp vanilla
(5) 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
(6) 1 ½ cups oatmeal
(7) 1 ¼ cups brown sugar
(8) ½ teaspoon baking soda
(9) ¼ teaspoon salt
(10) Mix! Bake for 12 minutes or Store
Notes:-
(a) I started with butter then switched to cooking margarine. Only my wallet can tell the difference
(b) I suppose that white sugar, or even molasses can be substituted for brown sugar
(c) I have only kosher salt – coarse crystals for salting, and this often enough yields small bombs of flavour within the cookies.
(d) One could mix in a handful of sultana raisins were they not so expensive
(e) This oatmeal cookie dough is the platform for apple crumble, date slice, and several other recipes. It is worthwhile becoming proficient in the preparation of the dough because it leads to other desserts. A perennial problem with oatmeal cookie dough is the collection of flaky flakes that flake off the balls of dough before the balls are flattened with the palm of one hand.
A solution is to use each dough ball to dab local flakes, which then adhere to the underside of the ball. And here are the finished results. A minute after this photo was taken only five cookies remained on-the cooling rack. Talk about light-as-a-feather cookies!
Cheers, Chris
