I have an oatmeal raisin cookie recipe from a great uncle who has passed away, he worked at a bakery. Apparently these are some really great cookies, but the recipe is in pounds which are not a problem but it does not state how much vanilla and salt to use or the cooking time or temperature. I figure that someone has ran into this before and wondered if you could help.
Thank you

Uncle Bobs oatmeal raisin cookies
1 1/2 lb sugar
3/4 lb Lard
1/2 lb Raisins
1/2 lb Oats
1 1/4 lb Flour
2 Eggs
7/8 cup milk
3 Level tsp soda
Salt
Vanilla
Temperature

When I was a kid, quite a while ago, I made oatmeal raisin cookies with my aunt that had ground up soaked raisins in them.  They were both chewy AND crisp around the edges.  They would puff up in the baking, but flatten as they cooled.  You had to let them cool on a flat surface, otherwise they conformed to what ever they draped over.  Unfortunately I lost the recipe and have been trying to recreate them from memory 50 years later.  However I never get quite the same results as we did then.  They are not quite as chewy and are more dense.

Here is the recipe as I am trying to make them now.  Can anyone tell me what I need more or less of to get a chewier result:

1/2 cup each of butter and shortening

1 cup each of brown and white granulated sugar

2 eggs

2-1/2 cups each of oatmeal and flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon soda

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 cup packed raisins

Water

Pack raisins into a one cup measure.  Pour enough water over the raisins to cover.  Either microwave for two minutes or bring to a boil in a small pot.  Let cool.  Drain off liquid, before putting raisins in processor or blender, process until finely chopped.  Cream butter, add sugar, beat until well mixed, beat in eggs, flour and oatmeal.  Add raisins.  Drop by spoonfuls, or #70 scoop (for a 2" cookie) on parchment paper covered or lightly greased cookie sheet.  Bake at 375° for 10-11 minutes.

As a keen bread baker I often blend my flours a little.  I buy an incredibly strong Canadian white flour and will sometimes use some of this (1/3 to 2/3) with a weaker but tasty flour, such as the Malted Grain I use.

Right at the moment I'm running a bit short on flour and won't be able to get to my supplier, 30+ miles away, for a week at least.  Yesterday I needed to make a loaf so decided to try using some fine oatmeal I'd got - about a 50/50 split with my white.  It took literally hours!

The stuff just did not want to rise.  OK, it was a bit cooler than usual in the house but there's obviously nowhere near as much gluten in the oatmeal.  Initially the loaf looked very uneven too, so I had to knock it back - unusual for me, as I generally use fast-action yeast.

After what seemed like a week, I decided to bake the loaf even though it wasn't as big as I would have liked.

As you can imagine, the bread is a little heavier than I normally like, but the taste.............!!!!!  It's fantastic!

Has anyone got any other ideas for a good blend of flours for bread?  (Not lumpy stuff please, just flour.)

This morning I realized I had run out of whole wheat pastry flour, and didn't have time to grind more when I stumbled upon some leftover spelt flour I had ground a while back.  Since spelt is low in gluten like pastry flour, I decided to try it in my pancakes.  These pancakes were fluffy, rich, and perfect when topped with peanut butter and syrup.  (If you've never tried peanut butter and syrup on pancakes, don't knock it till you try it!)  Here's the recipe I made up this morning:

Spelt Oatmeal Pancakes

2 cups spelt flour

1/2 cup oatmeal

1/8 cup crushed pecans (optional but ooooh so good)

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tbsp coconut oil (melted or softened)

1 cup milk

1/8 cup honey

2 eggs

Mix the dry, add the wet, then griddle yourself up some delicious and healthy multi-grain goodness!

I couldn't get the pictures to work, so for photos and more whole wheat and starter recipes on my blog at http://thebreadgeek.blogspot.com

I am currently in the process of  putting together a multi grain unenriched loaf, relying on the tangzhong method to keep it nice and fluffy. Here is the latest result from its prettiest side:

But this is what I would like to talk about: on the dark side of the moon this is what is going on

The bread has ripped in quite some places in a way that I have never seen before. It makes it all look even more rustic, and that is fine, but I want to know the cause.

Here are some pieces of info that might help:

Multi grain, with manitoba, rye, oatmeal, barley, whole wheat and malt powder.

Made using a water roux; the famous Tangzhong method (that I love more and more every day!)

Baked on 220 C in a dutch oven. 20 minutes with lid, the rest of the bake without lid. Was it too hot in the first 20 minutes?

A friend of mine baked the same loaf not using a dutch oven, but a little tin foil tent and had the same cracks going in his dough.

The dough didn't spill out or anything. The cracks look more like "dry cracks", something hydration related.

The formula is on the dry side, about 54%  AND there are quite some "heavy drinkers" in the mix, like oatmeal. Nevertheless the crumb is far from dry, and is actually remarkably fluffy (because of the tangzhong-method used)

Since the dough held quite some seeds, I added gluten powder, the formula called for 35 grams, which seems on the high side for a 1.1 kilo loaf. But I have never baked with it before, so I really don't know... Any idea?

Would love to hear back on this from you guys, thanks!

Freerk

In the last dessert of my dried fruit dessert series, I offer you Torie cookies.  I think I am cheating a bit by calling this a dried fruit dessert, as in addition to dried cherries, it contains chopped up Skor bars, bittersweet chocolate chunks and oatmeal.  But they are yummy.  I only ate one and sent the excess off to my son in Montreal and my daughter in Boston.  My third son, still at home, complained that he has to move away if he wants cookies.  I told him to pack his bags!

http://saltandserenity.com/2011/01/16/torie-cookies-oatmeal-toffee-cookies/

This was my first legit attempt at homemade bread, a whole wheat oatmeal bread. The recipe is from Kim Boyce's "Good To The Grain" cookbook, and is made in one day, using active dry yeast, regular whole wheat flour, oatmeal and unbleached bread flour, and a very short 30-minute autolyse before kneading and proofing. It's a great beginner's recipe.

A short list of ingredients I used:

King Arthur Flours

Red Star Active Dry Yeast

Please head on over to my recipe site to grab the recipe for these AWESOME Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies! YUM YUM YUM.

It only takes 1 minute to click, the recipe is the first thing you will see.  Thanks!  http://domesticconcoction.blogspot.com/

Since I bake all of our bread, I'm always on the hunt for great sandwich loaf recipes to try. I get bored making the same ones week after week.

I tried this one today and I'll definitely be adding it to the rotation: Oatmeal & Brown Sugar Toasting Bread from King Arthur Flour.

It has rolled oats, steel-cut oats and a nice dose of brown sugar for a sweet, toasty, nutty loaf. I bumped up the nutrition a bit by adding some whole-wheat flour to the mix.

You can see photos and get the recipe on my blog, Flour Girl, or on the King Arthur Flour site.

Happy baking!

Flour Girl

I made Dan Lepard’s Golspie Loaf from his Handmade Loaf book this weekend. It is 100% whole wheat except for the starter which the recipe says to do with either barley or rye flour. I actually did a whole wheat starter. A layer of coarse oatmeal (pinhead or steel cut) is on the crust and then it is baked in a round cake pan. The recipe instructs to score the loaf all the way through the dough to the bottom of the pan so that it can be pulled apart into sections after baking, but I did not score at all for fear of completely deflating what appeared to be a very wet and volatile dough. The recipe includes 3/4 teaspoon of fresh yeast, which I included because my starter didn’t seem very active at the time. However, Next time I will omit this and just use starter to see if it is really necessary or not.

I think I may have over-proofed after shaping because when I uncovered it and put it in the oven, the dough sank slightly. Despite this, my loaf turned out nicely and had a much more open crumb that I thought it would have and than what the picture in the book suggests. It also seemed to have a more open crumb than any other 100% whole wheat loaf I have ever made which was unexpected and reassuring.

Will post pictures.