March 7, 2022

Hunting for the Best Wartime Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Recipe

oatmeal molasses cookie
oatmeal molasses cookie

I’m on the hunt for the best oatmeal raisin cookie recipe from wartime that I can find. In my opinion, Oatmeal Raisin cookies need to be soft, chewy, not too sweet with a good balance of salt. They need to have just enough raisins, and definitely no nuts. But it’s been harder to find in wartime cookbooks than I thought.

Wartime Restrictions Made it Tough on Cookies

Looking for soft oatmeal cookies from wartime recipes might be asking too much. Soft cookies come from a good balance of flour and fat. Because of fat rationing during WWII, cookie recipes called for less fat, so cookies tended to be sturdier. This was good if you wanted to ship them to a soldier. They used fat substitutions besides butter like margarine, lard, shortening, and oil. So, they did find ways of making do without that precious butter. But, let’s be completely honest. Butter is best in cookies!

Sugar rationing also played a part in making it tough on cookies. Some recipes called for sugar substitutions like corn syrup, honey, maple syrup, or molasses which change the consistency of the cookies. Sugar and what kind you use plays an important part in the chewiness factor. When it comes to oatmeal cookies, the oats play into the chewiness too, so my success in finding a cookie will depend on which recipe I find!

Finding the Recipe

I went on a hunt through a few of my wartime cookbooks to start. It was tough just to find an oatmeal cookie recipe! There were all kinds of popular recipes, but I guess Oatmeal wasn’t one of them. I finally struck gold in one of my favorite wartime cookbook treasures What Do We Eat Now? A Guide to War-time Housekeeping by Helen Robertson, Sarah MacLeod, and Frances Preston.

mixing bowl with cookie dough and spoons with cookbooks in background

The recipe I discovered is simply entitled Oatmeal Cookies. The title gave me no clues to the most interesting ingredients within: mixed spices, orange peel, raisins, and molasses! (See, there’s that molasses sweetener!) These had me intrigued! It sounded like something straight out of Christmas.

mixing bowl showcasing closeup of oatmeal molasses cookie dough

Making the Cookies

I mixed the batter up, and the dough was runnier than I expected. In hindsight, I think I should have only used 1/2 c. of molasses instead of the 3/4 c. it calls for. The cookies spread too much and came out teeth-sticky-chewier than I’d like. So, this is a recipe that I’d like to tweak a bit more. Why bother? Because the flavor is really good! Not too sweet with the perfect level of spice. With all that molasses, I could barely tell the raisins were there (maybe need more?), and the oats held up their end of the deal in the chewiness and flavor. A lot of great things going on that are worthy of another go-around!

oatmeal molasses cookie dough balls on parchment paper

Unfortunately, these cookies still don’t look or taste like what I’m looking for! They’re not soft. Or chewy. Or just straight up oatmeal raisin. This recipe was a fun little detour, but I’m going to keep on hunting.

Feel free to experiment with this recipe too. You might find you like the thinner, crisper texture. Just be sure to take them out on time or just a bit before, because it’s hard to tell when they’re overdone.

oatmeal molasses cookies on glass serving dish

Wartime Oatmeal Molasses Cookies

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Put the oatmeal into a medium sized bowl. Sift the flour first, then measure. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spice together into the bowl with the oatmeal.

In a separate bowl mix together the melted fat, sugar, orange rind, molasses, egg, and milk. Combine into the oat/flour mixture until well blended. Add raisins, if desired.

Drop in teaspoonfuls onto a greased or parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Bake for about 10-12 minutes. Makes about 24 cookies.

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oatmeal molasses cookies
oatmeal molasses cookie

Wartime Oatmeal Molasses Cookies

Yield: 24
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 12 minutes
Total Time: 27 minutes

These oatmeal cookies have the surprising addition of molasses, orange peel, and spices giving them the warmth of Christmas while hitting all the right notes for sweetness and spice.

Ingredients

  • 2 1./2 c. oatmeal
  • 3/4 c. raisins or other dried fruit
  • 3/4 c. flour
  • 2 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp. baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice blend
  • 1 Tbsp. grated orange rind or lemon rind
  • 2/3 c. melted butter
  • 1/2 c. sugar
  • 1/2 c. molasses
  • 1 egg
  • 1 Tbsp. milk

Instructions

    Preheat oven to 375°F.

Put the oatmeal into a medium sized bowl. Sift the flour first, then measure. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spice together into the bowl with the oatmeal.

In a separate bowl mix together the melted fat, sugar, orange rind, molasses, egg, and milk. Combine into the oat/flour mixture until well blended. Add raisins, if desired.

Drop in teaspoonfuls onto a greased or parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Bake for about 10-12 minutes. Makes about 24 cookies.

Notes

I adjusted the amount of molasses down from 3/4 c. from the original recipe to 1/2 c. so they wouldn't be so runny and overly sugar-chewy. Adding a bit more flour may help too. You may need to play around with this a bit more to get them to the texture you like.

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