The Flour Swap You Should Try For Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

For those cookie critics who think raisins are best left out of recipes, there is a committed group that believes otherwise. Take Duff Goldman, for example, who insists giving oatmeal and raisins a good soak before starting to bake can result in plumper, juicier cookies that will convert any oatmeal skeptic. Toasting nuts can add even more textural dimension to oatmeal raisin cookie recipes, and incorporating your favorite flavors — dried cranberries, chopped pieces of chocolate, shavings of an orange peel — can help you create the perfect cookies for your entire household to enjoy.

Whether you need to accommodate a gluten-free diet or are simply looking to give standard oatmeal cookies a culinary and nutritional boost, we have a quick ingredient exchange that can lead to the chewiest, gooiest batches of cookies you've ever pulled out of your oven. The best part? You may already have this ingredient sitting in your cupboard.  

Adding oat flour to oatmeal cookie recipes can give a softer, fluffier consistency to cookies, and the flavor is so mild that any additional spices you decide to add — ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon — will remain the focus. Additionally, oat flour is low fat, packed with vitamins and minerals, and serves up significant protein per serving, offering a nutritional boost. If you can't find oat flour sold at your local market, you can make it for yourself at home: grind rolled oats into a fine powder, and you have the necessary ingredient to plump up your oatmeal cookies.

Keep in mind that the cookie dough you make with oat flour may not appear to be as stretchy as dough made with regular flour. Because oat flour is gluten free, cookie dough won't feel as fluffy in your hands. With careful attention to the other ingredients and the amount you use of each item, your cookies will come out of the oven soft and chewy. While you can experiment with the proportion of flour you add to your recipe, oat flour can generally be substituted in a 1:1 ratio.