Inspiration: Recently, whilst my husband was working from home, I asked what cookie his coworkers were hankering after. Instead, they responded with a list of ingredients: oatmeal, cranberry, white chocolate, and bacon bits. Happily, I managed to make the majority of their vision come true in one cookie!
Except for the bacon bits, I’m still working on a recipe for that singularly unique ingredient.
That being said, I was a tad trepidatious about the bake. Why? Whether I used raisins, currents, cranberries, or lingonberries, whenever I made oatmeal cookies the dried fruit always seemed to catch during baking. As the condensed sugar makes it easier for these nuggets of antioxidants to scorch during the 9 – 11 minutes they reside in a 350 degree oven (as I understand it). Thus adding a bitter and burnt taste (I’m never looking for) to the final cookie.
Unwilling to back down from a challenge and having Betty Crocker’s otherwise tried & true recipe in my hip pocket — I decided to give berries one more chance.
I’m glad I did.
The recipe I traditionally use comes from one of Betty Crocker’s many cookbooks. This recipe here is the one I found online that’s closest to mine.
According to my book, after combining the recipe’s first eleven ingredients in the bowl all at once, the baker is then instructed to mix the oats, flour, and raisins together — in that order.
Unsurprisingly, I’ve strayed from this original order of operations over the years. Mixing the wet ingredients first. (The baker’s sugar and brown sugar are combined with the butter and butter-flavored Crisco, then the eggs are cracked in one at a time, and the vanilla is added last.)
Whilst my mixer is churning and whirring the wet ingredients, I whisk the dry together in a separate bowl. (Flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.) Then, I added the oats, pumpkin seeds, and raisins (when I used them).
Turns out I should’ve altered the order of operations just a little further.
Turns out, when I mixed the fruit in first – and – the oats last, the fruit no longer scorched in the oven! Seems the thorough coating of the base batter the berries receive solved my scorching problem and, happily, didn’t create a new one! I’ve made a half-dozen batches since without issue, and for someone who’s constantly looking for a better breakfasts cookie, I’m over the moon!
I never thought such a simple trick would make such a huge difference. All thanks to my husband’s coworkers laying down a challenge (even if they weren’t aware of it).
Another Helpful Tip from Me to You: I did need to quarter the dried cranberries before mixing them into the batter; otherwise, they probably still would’ve still scorched due to their size. And according to the group of tasters, this flavor combo turned out really well.
Variant: Recently, I’ve substituted dried blueberries for raisins. A swap my tastebuds likes much better! They also stand up well to the increased amount of cinnamon I’ve started incorporating into the cookies. I also discovered powdered vanilla mixes more uniformly (with the dry ingredients) into my batter and is slightly stronger in flavor than its liquid counterpart.
Christie’s Canon of Characters: Predictably, the sleuths I can most see tinkering with recipes are Miss Marple and Tuppence for similar reasons. Fiddling with a recipe allows one to land unexpectedly on someone’s doorstep and ask their opinion of your new adjacent creation. This conversational gambit creates an opening that allows one to naturally segue onto more pertinent topics, like alibis, unofficial witness statements, and their opinions of the victim.
(Joanna Fluke’s Hannah Swenson mysteries are predicated on this idea.)
My 52 Weeks With Christie: A.Miner©2025
My 52 Weeks With Christie 