Bakery Style Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Bakery Style Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

This batch of oatmeal raisin cookies is sure to warm your heart! Browned butter, spices, and a touch of molasses are the secret to making these cookies moist, chewy and flavorful.

Cookies, Gluten Free, Vegan, Vegetarian

Flavor Notes

Toffee | Toast | Rum

Pairing Suggestions

Iced Oat milk Latte

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Table of Contents

Why You’ll Love These Cookies

If you aren’t already a die-hard oatmeal raisin cookie fan, these bakery style oatmeal raisin cookies might just change your mind! Get ready to indulge in a batch of giant, chewy, and deeply flavorful cookies. They’re made with plenty of love along with old-fashioned oats, browned vegan butter, and soaked raisins. 

Ingredients

• Vegan Brown Butter – yes, vegans can brown butter, too! In this recipe, browning the butter serves two purposes. First, it prevents the cookies from spreading too thin while baking. Second, it contributes to a complex, rich, almost nutty flavor profile.
• Old Fashioned Rolled Oats – we can’t have oatmeal cookies without the star of the show! You might be surprised to learn that every 100g packs in 10 grams of fiber and over 16 grams of protein! 
• AP Flour – the flour in this recipe supports the structure and texture of the cookie. Without it, we’d be left with a “bumpy” sort of dough. Think of the flour as a matrix for the oats to settle into.
• Sugar – a mix of white and brown keeps these cookies chewy on the inside and crispy on the edges
• Molasses – this is our extra egg yolk replacement! Many non-vegan cookies call for an extra egg yolk for the ultimate chewy, gooey texture. With this secret ingredient, not only are we saving cholesterol, we’re also adding flavor.
• Flax egg – to bind the dough together while baking and to sneak in some healthy omega-3’s while we’re at it!
• Applesauce – to moisten the cookie dough and reduce the amount of butter required.
• Baking soda – allows the dough to rise while baking
• Cinnamon – an excellent complement to the dark, rich flavor of these cookies
• Vanilla – for the cozy flavor
• Salt – a flavor enhancer
• Raisins – part of the recipe’s namesake, we can’t leave these out! Sub chocolate chips if you are ardently averdent. 
• Rum or water – dark rum, to be specific. We’ll use it to rehydrate the raisins before adding them to the dough. This soaking step is essential for a baked cookie that has plump, squishy raisins as opposed to dry, hardened ones. Don’t worry, these are still kid-friendly – the alcohol will evaporate during the baking process.

How to Make Bakery Style Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

• Step 1: measure out the ingredients
• Step 2: soak the raisins while you brown the butter on the stove
• Step 3: combine the wet ingredients, then fold in the dry ones
• Step 4: chill the dough
• Step 5: bake at 350!

How to Brown Vegan Butter

Browning butter is much easier than you’d think. Start by adding the butter (straight from the fridge is just fine) into a nonstick pan and melt it over medium heat. Stir frequently. The mixture will become frothy and expand as it heats. Each time this happens, you’ll need to lift the pan off the burner and wait a few seconds for the bubbling to calm down. Be patient – you’ll go through several intervals like this until the butter turns golden brown, about 5 minutes. I use Miyokos block style butter; there might be a different level of foaminess if you’re using another plant-based brand or even traditional butter.

Once you’ve reached your desired shade of brown, you’ll add the butter to a bowl with the sugars. It’s best to let the butter cool off a bit before combining. Ideally, your ingredients are all at room temperature. Swirling the wet ingredients together was incredibly satisfying. No need for a beater, just mix with a spoon or spatula for a minute or so.

Expand the wet ingredients by adding the vanilla, applesauce, flax egg and molasses. At this point, you should get your soaked raisins out of their bath, pat them dry and have them ready to go. Be sure to whisk the dry ingredients together before folding them in. Add the dry to the wet. Right before the dough is completely mixed is when we throw in the rum soaked raisins.

Expert Tips

Chill for 24 hours for the best results. Letting the dough rest serves the same function as marinating a dish before baking – it marries the ingredients and enhances the flavor. It’s the same reason why soup tastes soooo much better on the second day. If using all-purpose flour, this step also prevents over-spreading by giving the gluten fibers time to develop into a strong network.

Measure the butter before you brown it on the stove. It’ll lose a good bit of moisture during the browning process, which we accommodate for with the applesauce.

Measure your flour by spooning it into the measuring cup. In other words, don’t use the measuring cup as a flour scoop. Even better – use a kitchen scale to actually weigh the flour in grams. 

Use a circle-shaped cookie cutter (or a wide-mouthed wine glass, no one’s judging) to shape the cookies after baking. This is one of my favorite baking hacks of all time! You’ll be left with perfectly round cookies – just place the cookie cutter around each cookie and move it around in circles, the cookie should be sliding around as you do so. You’ll need to wait to do this until the cookies have had about 2 minutes to rest from the oven so that they’re firm enough to move but soft enough to take on the new shape.

Substitutions

Gluten-free cookies: use a 1:1 AP flour substitution. I love Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 baking flour. I do not recommend using oat flour to replace AP.

Flax egg: replace the flax egg with an additional TBSP of molasses + 2 additional TBSPs of applesauce. You’ll compromise by getting a stronger molasses-y flavor and thinner cookies, but it saves you the trouble of grinding up flax seeds.

Sugar: I have only tried these cookies with a brown/white sugar blend. The two work together beautifully to give that crispy exterior and chewy interior. I would not recommend using a liquid sweetener such as maple syrup. Coconut sugar might work to replace either brown, white, or both. Again, I haven’t tested these alternatives, so I can only guess!

FAQs

Recipe Card

Bakery Style Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

These oversized oatmeal raisin cookies will feel like they came straight out of a bakery. Expect a complex, toffee-like flavor, plump raisins, soft middles, and crispy edges.

Print Recipe

Prep Time:30 minutes mins

Cook Time:11 minutes mins

Chill time:2 hours hrs

Ingredients

• 1 ⅓ cup old fashioned rolled oats 130 g
• 1 cup flour (GF: Bob's 1:1 gluten-free baking blend) 125 g
• 1 tsp baking soda 6 g
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 ½ tsp cinnamon
• 9 tbsp butter 130 g
• ½ cup brown sugar, packed 90 g
• ¼ cup + 3 tbsp white sugar 70 g
• ¼ cup unsweetened applesauce 62.5 g
• 1 flax egg (1 tbsp flax + 3 tbsp H₂O)
• 1 tbsp molasses 17.5 g
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup raisins 200 g
• ¼ cup rum + 1 cup H₂O 300 g total *

Instructions

• Soak the raisins in warm water or diluted rum and water mixture. Let sit while you prep the cookie dough.
• Make the flax egg. Combine 1 TBSP ground flax seeds with 3 TBSP water and thicken in the fridge for 10 minutes.
• In a large bowl, combine white and brown sugars.
• In a medium bowl, whisk flour, oats, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt.
• Brown the butter: (see photos above) add the butter to a nonstick pan and heat on medium-low, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes or until desired brown hue is achieved. The butter will froth (especially if you use mykonos), whenever this happens, lift the saucepan off the burner and wait for the frothing to subside while swirling gently. Put the pan back on the burner and continue to cook, pulling pan on and off the burner, until butter is golden brown.
• Add the browned butter to the sugars. Whisk to combine. Add the vanilla, flax egg, molasses, and applesauce. Whisk some more.
• Fold in the dry ingredients until almost combined.
• Dry the soaked raisins with a dishcloth or paper towel. Add them to the dough, folding gently to combine.
• Refrigerate: cover the dough and chill for at least 2 hours, but ideally 9-24 hours.
• Bake: preheat the oven to 350℉. Line a light-colored baking tray with parchment paper or a silpat mat. Scoop the cold dough into balls about 2.5 tbsp each. Allow 2-3" between each on the tray – they'll expand while baking. Bake for 11 minutes or until edges darken slightly.
• Cool on the baking tray for 10 minutes (see expert tips for optional shaping step!), then transfer to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

Notes

 I highly recommend you chill the dough – ideally for 24 hours, but for at least 2 hours, before baking.

*dilute the rum with a cup of water and make sure all raisins are submerged. Let these sit while you make the cookie dough. If you don’t have rum or you don’t like rum, feel free to use orange juice, apple juice, or more water instead!

Servings: 12 cookies

Calories: 278kcal

Nutrition Information

Did you try this recipe? Drop your notes in the comments – I’d love to hear how it went!