Mom’s Oatmeal Cookies

For the last 10 months I have been baking oatmeal cookies, hoping to figure out Mom’s trick to making them fluffy and soft, without spreading flat. I have tried cold butter, melted butter, quick oats, old fashioned oats, different recipes, and still, once cooled down the cookie would flatten. And, when I say flatten, I mean paper thin and crunchy. I love crunchy, but not when I am trying to make oatmeal cookies like Mom used to bake.

I remember the ingredients, so the recipes all were very simple and similar but with slightly different measurements. I was about to try Margarine, because that’s what I grew up on and I know that is what Mom used in all recipes. However, I suddenly realized that at a higher elevation I probably needed more flour and why that never occured to me is baffling. Living in the flat lands (lol) I always saw recipes mentioned more flour for higher elevations, but since living here, none of the recipes call for that, and with everything except the oatmeal cookies, the final result is a success. So, while tackling this project to find the trick to fluffy oatmeal cookies, I forgot about the elevation. I turned to the internet and some recipes call for an extra tablespoon, while others say no extra flour is needed….

Instead of buying store brand oats, I went with Quaker so that I could have the recipe and inside the lid it calls for an extra 1 3/4 cup of flour. That is a huge amount of extra flour but the result is fluffy oatmeal cookies!!! Fluffy and soft. They even taste similar to what I recall enjoying as a kid. I will say that they are not as fluffy as Mom’s, but this is the closest I have gotten so far and I am calling this a success. A big success!