Weekly Sweet Baking

My husband has this rule about having only one sweet per week. About a month ago he was 20 lbs “overweight” from the ideal weight he likes to be. So he decided to eat salad everyday, and gives himself only one day to savor sweets. There, my weekly baking began.

This week, I made Oatmeal Raisin Cookies:


Oatmeal Raisin Cookies: adopted from marthastewart.com

3 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1 cup all purpose flour
2 table spoons all purpose flour
½ cup toasted wheat germ (I toasted raw wheat germ in the oven for about 5 minutes)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter (leave it in the room temperature for 15 minutes to soften)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pore vanilla extract
1 ½ cups raisins

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Stir dry ingredients (rolled oats, flour, wheat germ, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt) in a big bowl and mix them well.

Put butter and sugar in a bowl and mix it until puffy and fluffy . (the website tells you to use electric mixer with paddle attachment. But I don't have one so I used a big whisk -- butter needs to be pretty soft to do this with a whisk)

Mix in eggs and vanilla extract.

Add oat mixture (add a third at a time, and mix it until just combined.) Add raisins

Using a 1 1/2-inch ice cream scoop, drop dough onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper, spacing 2 inches apart. Flatten slightly. (again, if you don't have ice cream scoop, just use your bigger spoon in the drawer like I did!)

Bake until golden and just set, about 14 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks 5 minutes.

voilà!