I find that most store-bought oatmeal cookies can’t touch the rich homemade variety I remember from my childhood. We used to get them at the old Schrafft’s stores, and when I asked Jim Beard if he remembered those cookies and, if so, could he give me the recipe, he immediately called the head of the company and got a formula for producing a huge amount. Jim helped translate some of the unfamiliar ingredients and reduce the recipe to a manageable amount. I have been making this oatmeal cookie ever since—now in small amounts. Double the recipe if you have children around.

　　

Ingredients

4 tablespoons butter (1/2 stick)

　　1/2 cup sugar

　　1 large egg

　　1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

　　2 tablespoons milk

　　3/4 cup oatmeal (not instant cooking)

　　3/4 cup all-purpose flour

　　1/4 teaspoon baking powder

　　1/4 teaspoon baking soda

　　1/2 teaspoon salt

　　1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

　　1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

　　1/2 cup raisins

　　1/2 cup chopped walnuts

　　

Step 1

Beat the butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl. Add the egg, vanilla, and milk, and beat until light and fluffy. Stir in the oatmeal. Mix the flour, baking powder and soda, salt, and spices on a piece of wax paper, then pick that up and dump the dry ingredients into your mixing bowl. Beat until well blended. Fold in the raisins and walnuts.

　　

Step 2

Drop the cookie batter by the tablespoonful onto Silpat-lined baking sheets (or just butter the baking sheets), leaving about 1 1/2 inches between mounds. Bake in a preheated 350° oven for 12 minutes. Remove the cookies, and cool on racks.

　　The Pleasures of Cooking for One by Judith Jones. Copyright © 2009 by Judith Jones. Published by Knopf. All Rights Reserved.Judith Jones is senior editor and vice president at Alfred A. Knopf. She is the author of The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food and the coauthor with Evan Jones (her late husband) of three books: The Book of Bread; Knead It, Punch It, Bake It!; and The Book of New New England Cookery. She also collaborated with Angus Cameron on The L. L. Bean Game and Fish Cookbook, and has contributed to Vogue, Saveur, and Gourmet magazines. In 2006, she was awarded the James Beard Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. She lives in New York City and Vermont.