An oatmeal raisin cookie is a type of

drop cookie A cookie is a baked or cooked snack or dessert that is typically small, flat and sweet. It usually contains flour, sugar, egg, and some type of oil, fat, or butter. It may include other ingredients such as raisins, oats, chocolate chips, nu ...

made from an

oatmeal Oatmeal is a preparation of oats that have been de-husked, steamed, and flattened, or a coarse flour of hulled oat grains (groats) that have either been milled (ground) or steel-cut. Ground oats are also called white oats. Steel-cut oats are ...

-based dough with

raisins A raisin is a dried grape. Raisins are produced in many regions of the world and may be eaten raw or used in cooking, baking, and brewing. In the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia, the word ''raisin'' is reserved for the da ...

. Its ingredients also typically include

flour Flour is a powder made by grinding raw grains, roots, beans, nuts, or seeds. Flours are used to make many different foods. Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many culture ...

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...

eggs Humans and human ancestors have scavenged and eaten animal eggs for millions of years. Humans in Southeast Asia had domesticated chickens and harvested their eggs for food by 1,500 BCE. The most widely consumed eggs are those of fowl, especial ...

salt Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quantitie ...

, and

spices A spice is a seed, fruit, root, Bark (botany), bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, or stems of plants used for flavoring or as a garni ...

. A descendant of the Scottish

oatcake An oatcake is a type of flatbread similar to a cracker or biscuit, or in some versions takes the form of a pancake. They are prepared with oatmeal as the primary ingredient, and sometimes include plain or wholemeal flour as well. Oatcakes a ...

, the oatmeal raisin cookie has become one of the most popular cookies in the United States. When the cookies were becoming prominent in the United States in the early 1900s, they came to be known as a

health food A healthy diet is a diet that maintains or improves overall health. A healthy diet provides the body with essential nutrition: fluid, macronutrients such as protein, micronutrients such as vitamins, and adequate fibre and food energy. A healt ...

because of the fiber and vitamins from the oatmeal and raisins. Nonetheless, the

nutritional value Nutritional value or nutritive value as part of food quality is the measure of a well-balanced ratio of the essential nutrients carbohydrates, fat, protein, minerals, and vitamins in items of food or diet concerning the nutrient requirements of the ...

of an oatmeal raisin cookie is essentially the same as a

chocolate chip cookie A chocolate chip cookie is a drop cookie that features chocolate chips or chocolate morsels as its distinguishing ingredient. Chocolate chip cookies originated in the United States around 1938, when Ruth Graves Wakefield chopped up a Nestl ...

in sugar and calorie content. Depending on how many raisins or oats are added, the fat and fiber content may not be much different either.

History

In the early

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

, traditional Scottish

oatcakes An oatcake is a type of flatbread similar to a cracker or biscuit, or in some versions takes the form of a pancake. They are prepared with oatmeal as the primary ingredient, and sometimes include plain or wholemeal flour as well. Oatcakes ar ...

had similar ingredients but were and are typically crispier than modern oatmeal cookies. The first recorded ''oatmeal cookie'' recipe was published in the United States by

Fannie Merritt Farmer Fannie Merritt Farmer (23 March 1857 – 16 January 1915) was an American culinary expert whose ''Boston Cooking-School Cook Book'' became a widely used culinary text. Education Fannie Farmer was born on 23 March 1857 in Boston, Massachusetts, ...

in her 1896 cookbook, the

Boston Cooking-School Cook Book The ''Boston Cooking-School Cook Book'' (1896) by Fannie Farmer is a 19th-century general reference cookbook which is still available both in reprint and in updated form. It was particularly notable for a more rigorous approach to recipe writing ...

. While Farmer's original recipe did not contain raisins, their inclusion grew more common over time, due in part to the oatmeal raisin cookie recipes featured on every

Quaker Oats The Quaker Oats Company, known as Quaker, is an American food conglomerate based in Chicago. It has been owned by PepsiCo since 2001. History Precursor miller companies In the 1850s, Ferdinand Schumacher and Robert Stuart founded oat mills. S ...

container beginning in the early 1900s.

Variations

In addition to plain oatmeal cookies,

chocolate chips Chocolate chips or chocolate morsels are small chunks of sweetened chocolate, used as an ingredient in a number of desserts (notably chocolate chip cookies and muffins), in trail mix and less commonly in some breakfast foods such as pancakes. ...

may be added instead of raisins. Other flavorings may be added in addition to the traditional spices.

References

{{Oats Cookies American desserts Scottish desserts Oat-based dishes

History

Variations

See also

References