Baking Bouchon - Recipe 16: TLC's (Oatmeal Cookies)

Hooray!  Unlike these oatmeal cookies which have dreaded raisins in them, these little numbers do not.  They do, however have pecans in them, which I wholeheartedly approve of.  The story behind these cookies is that one of Thomas's friends had been picking the raisins out of the oatmeal raisin cookies so he made another version for her that replaced the raisins with nuts.  The person's initials are TLC, hence the name.  She and I should totally be besties.

There's nothing unusual about how the cookies are made, you cream the butter, add the sugar, add your dry ingredients, then oats and pecans.

Every once in a while I'm super organized when I'm baking.  I get all my ingredients measured and ready to go before starting any type of mixing.  Today was one of those days and I was so proud of myself that I took a picture.  For proof... because, believe me, this does NOT happen all the time.  Often there's stuff flying everywhere and I realize I forgot something and I curse and drop stuff and....  Well, let's just say it's not always this pretty.

Thomas makes a big point in this cookbook about thoroughly creaming the butter and sugar together when making cookies and cake batters.  I've heard this point made over and over again in cookbooks, in magazines, on blogs and even in the bakery I used to work for.  The whole point is that you don't want to have any butter chunks in the cookie dough.  If you do, the chunk will melt when you bake it and make the cookies spread or have holes in them.  Butter temperature is a big deal in baking.  In some recipes you want the butter super cold (scones, puff pastry, pie dough) so that you get butter chunks in the dough which melt, create steam and make for a flaky texture.  In cookies, you don't want that.  You want the butter fully incorporated into the dough.

Another point is that once you add the eggs to the dough you don't want to whip it too much or too long.  Overwhipping the eggs = dough that inflates in the oven, then deflates when it cools = not pretty cookies.  Moral of the story, beat the crap out your butter and sugar first, then only mix it a little once you add the eggs.

So, these cookies are OK but they're not really my type.  Yes, I'm happy they are sans-raisins but they are crispy and I don't really like crispy cookies.  I get that crispy is the intent here and if you like that sort of thing, you'll love these.  CA prefers crispy cookies, something he recently told me after 10 years of me serving him soft, pillowy cookies.  Poor guy, he's been suffering in silence all this time.  Someone get that man a prize.

Julie