Oats are one of the most popular and healthiest breakfast options across the whole globe in today’s date. They are one of the healthiest grains on earth. The more you use oatmeal permanently in your everyday diet, the more drastically will it transform your life and improve its quality.

Oats are gluten-free and contain minerals, vitamins, fiber, and antioxidants.

Benefits of oats and oatmeal

• It lowers the blood sugar level,
• It aids in weight loss, and
• It helps overcome the chances of heart disease.

Difference between oats and oatmeal

Oats are whole grain meal, scientifically called as Avena Sativa . Oat groats are the most intact and complete form of oats, which usually takes a lot of time to cook. This is one of the reason many of us prefer to use crushed, rolled, or steel-cut oats.

During this winter, there is nothing more joyful than to munch some healthy oatmeal raisin cookies. Out of the many cookie recipes available online, let us find out how to prepare different varieties of oatmeal raisin cookies. Below are some cookie recipes that will let you indulge without guilt this season.

Oatmeal raisin cookies

Rich, buttery brown sugar and oatmeal raisin cookies, added with a hint of cinnamon and a bunch of juicy raisins. This is one of the more popular cookie recipes you can follow.

Ingredients

• 1 cup raisins, it could be chopped nuts or semisweet chocolate chips (whatever one you like actually, but one cup of raisins)
• 1 cup all-purpose flour (prefer Gold Medal)
• 2 eggs
• 3 cups instant-cooking or old-fashioned oats
• ½ teaspoon of baking powder
• ½ teaspoon of salt
• Ground cinnamon and vanilla essence, 1 teaspoon each
• Baking soda 1 teaspoon
• ½ cup shortening
• 2/3 of granulated sugar
• ½ cup butter softened or margarine
• 2/3 brown sugar (cup packed)

Cooking method

• Heat the oven to 375° F. Take a large bowl, and at a medium speed with an electric mixer or spoon, beat together all the ingredients except flour, oats, and raisins. Stir in flour, oats, and raisins.
• Take a cookie sheet (not greased), drop a dough by circled tablespoonful around a distance of 2 inches away.
• Bake this batter/dough for about 8 to 12 minutes until it turns light brown, quickly remove from the cookie sheet to a cooling frame.

Expert tips

Press the dough into ungreased of 13×9-inch pan. Bake them for 15 to 20 minutes until it becomes light brown. Immediately shift them to a cooling rack (cool pan). Approximately, 36 bars can be cut into 6×6 rows.

Puffy oatmeal cookies

One of the healthy oatmeal raisins cookie recipes is making a puffy cookie version topped with raisins, oats and flax seeds. This, in turn, provides fiber and omega 3 fatty acids which are good for the body. Moreover, the preparation time is just 10 minutes! This is one of the healthiest and easiest cookie recipes that will help you enjoy and maintain your health.

Ingredients

• 1 1/3 cup of quick cooking oats
• 1 1/3 cup of all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar
• Ground cinnamon one teaspoon
• Vanilla essence one teaspoon
• Room temperature unsalted butter of six tablespoons,
• Pinch of salt
• 1 egg
• Dark raisins 3/4 cup
• Flax seeds 1/3 cup

Cooking method

• Position a baking sheet with parchment paper and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
• Blend the butter and brown sugar by using a hand mixer until the texture is fluffy, probably around 2 minutes and add cinnamon, vanilla essence and egg. Beat them for other 30 seconds, until the batter is smooth.
• Take a separate bowl, mix, raisins, oats, flax seeds and flour with baking powder, baking soda, and a pinch of salt.
• By using a rubber spatula, lap the oat mixture into the egg batter. The dough needs not be soft, it is more of crumbly but that is fine.
• Hold a standardized tablespoon measure or small ice cream scoop. Take a golf ball size of the dough and place the ball on the cookie sheet and spread them apart about 1/2 inches apart.
• Bake the oatmeal raisin cookie for 12 to 14 minutes, the time duration depends upon the cookie size. The accurate time to take them out is when the center is soft but the edge has set.
• Reset it for an extra two minutes after that to get the crunchier cookie.
• Attempt to remove two minutes before the baking sheet is cool

This batter can be frozen, wrapped it on a parchment paper or pre-measured into a small ball size. When ready to bake, slice the dough, bake the golden ball at the same temperature or two minutes longer than usual.

Freezing the cookies batter

When we have some unexpected guests at home, it is not that easy to make oatmeal raisin cookies. So, it is vital to find some solution to freeze cookies or cookie dough which literally works as a life saver. The basic thing to remember is that the more liquid the cookie batter, the more it won’t stand well in the freezer. Also, very cakey or floury cookies batter will not freeze well.