Just when you thought these soft and chewy oatmeal raisin cookies couldn’t get any more amazing, we went and turned them into little teddy bears! Enjoy the flavors of fall and make sure to sneak a few of these delicious cookies for breakfast. Shhh it’s okay, we won’t tell!
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Why you need to try these soft and chewy oatmeal raisin cookies
They’re super easy.
They taste like the pure magic of fall.
Most importantly….they’re so dang cute! Why make a regular oatmeal raisin cookie when you can make one that’s a delicious teddy bear that stays soft for days!?
Benefits of These Teddy Bear Cookies
Oats are complex carbohydrates. Complex carbs keep you fuller longer which means these are a great treat that’ll actually leave you feeling satisfied rather than still starving.
Oats are also higher in protein and fiber than other cookies which is always a good thing to have a little extra of.
Raisins are a good source of potassium and the fiber in them are great at lowering bad cholesterol. Not to mention that they can help regulate blood sugars some too.
Cinnamon is anti inflammatory and has been used medicinally for centuries as an anti bacterial, anti viral, and anti fungal tool. It’s also a great prebiotic helping keep your gut healthy and thriving. But most of all, cinnamon is a super antioxidant and all around good for you.
And sugar. Well sugar just tastes good. Sometimes you just have to enjoy the sweeter side of life and indulge something tasty. Luckily, this recipe only used brown sugar and maple syrup, both are healthier than straight granulated sugar because they are both less refined.
With all of these health benefits, I can actually say that we sometimes bring these cookies on backpacking trips for snacks and breakfasts.
I mean, most of the time we actually bring cherry oatmeal cookies from this post which I specifically designed for backpacking – but these also come along for the trip a lot too.
Tips for the Best Soft and Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
Tip #1: Use Room Temperature Ingredients
You want to make sure that all your ingredients are room temperature.
This helps ingredients actually bind together properly leaving you with a soft and chewy cookie. Cold eggs will not bind well to the flour and oats leaving you a gummy or hard cookie that just isn’t as satisfying.
Tip #2 : Measure the Flour Correctly
To perfect soft and chewy oatmeal raisin cookies, you also need to make sure you’re measuring your flour correctly. Flour gives your cookie structure and too much of it will result in a hard, dense, very structurally sound cookie.
Personally, we choose to measure our flour by weight because it is by far the most reliable way to do it. (Check for the metric conversion in the recipe box below for the correct grams of flour for this recipe).
If you don’t have a kitchen scale (which, why the heck do you not? They’re cheap and so SO helpful) you can use the spoon and level method. (Tutorial from Sally’s Baking Addiction).
Tip #3: What’s with the cornstarch?
If you haven’t noticed yet, we use cornstarch in a lot of our cookie recipes. Cornstarch helps soften the proteins in your cookies and keeps them soft and chewy for days.
You can skip it of course, but I never recommend it. It really does help give these teddy bear cookies the perfect amount of chew without losing any structure.
Tip #4: Fold, Don’t Mix
I really recommend folding your dry ingredients, oats, and raisins into your batter, rather than using an electric hand mixer. We don’t want to overbeat the egg so folding is an easy way to prevent this.
As we talked about, oats already have a lot of structure, so you don’t want to beat the eggs too much because doing so will lengthen the egg proteins and give them too much structure. This would result in, yep you guessed it, a sad hockey puck of disappointment.
Tip #5: Create the Teddy Bears
To turn these soft and chewy oatmeal raisin cookies into soft and chewy teddy bear cookies, we’re going to take 1 tablespoon of dough roll it into a ball and that’s going to be the head. Press it down into a flat disc with the bottom of a glass.
Then roll two more balls of dough of 1 TEAspoon each and place them right above that flattened TABLEspoon of dough for the ears. Gently press them together just so that the ears are attached to the head and then bake.
Next, take one more TEAspoon of dough and place it in the lower center of the head for the snout. Press it down slightly but not completely.
Tip #5.1: Your balls should be measured
(that sounds dirty, but I’m sticking to that title)
My recommendation is to use a kitchen scale and measure each ball for the face. That way your ears are equal size and you make sure you’ll have enough dough for all 12 cookies.
For the head, each ball I made was 40g. For the ears and snout, they were 10g. Now do you have to measure this out so precisely? No. But if you run out of dough for your last bear, he’s going to come out a little awkward looking.
And if you’re making these as a gift, yeah, presentation matters. Put the extra love in and actually measure those ears and snouts.
Tip #5.2: Push in those ears
Those ears will fall off if you don’t press that dough into the head before you bake these. (see the video below for an ear pushing demonstration).
After they come out of the oven, let them cool full to reduce the risk of the ears falling off.
Tip #6: Underbake
The most important trick when it comes to oatmeal raisin cookies (or really most cookies) to keep them soft and chewy is to never overbake them. Ever.
Pulling them out of the oven when they still look slightly underbaked is the sweet spot. They will continue to bake and set as they cool from residual heat. Baking them until they’re actually done will evaporate the rest of the moisture out of the cookie and you will still have residual heat baking them after they come out of the oven.
That’s why so many cookie recipes are perfection hot out of the oven but the next morning they become sad hockey pucks of disappointment.
Tip #7: Create the face
As soon as the cookies come out of the oven, press in your eyes and nose. The cookies need to still be very warm for this to work.
There are many things you can use to make the face as well…
- Brown M&Ms
- Chocolate Chips
- Raisins
- Eyeball Sprinkles, and a chocolate chip
- Reese’s Pieces
- etc, etc.
So what keeps these Teddy Bear Cookies so soft and chewy?
I know we threw a lot of information at you in the tips above, so here’s a quick recap to keep those oatmeal raisin cookies soft and chewy:
- The trick is the proper moisture content balanced with proper structure.
- We want to slightly underbake them so that we don’t evaporate all of our extra moisture.
- We use brown sugar instead of white sugar to help maintain the moisture content and add in maple syrup for that extra chewiness.
- Measure your flour by weight
- Don’t overmix your eggs
Related Recipes to Try:
Hiking Cookies
Soft Pumpkin Cookies
Homemade Hot Cocoa Mix
Oatmeal Raisin Teddy Bear Cookies: The Major Motion Picture
Soft and Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies: Teddy Bear Cookies
Ingredients
- ½ cup butter unsalted, room temperature
- ¾ cup brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tbsp vanilla
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- dash of nutmeg
- ½ tsp cardamom
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 tsp cornstarch
- 1½-2 cups flour See Recipe Notes
- 1½ cups Old-Fashioned oats
- ¾ cup raisins
For Decorating
- 36 brown m&ms
Instructions
- Line 2 baking sheets with silicone baking mats. Set aside.
- Cream together the butter and sugar until smooth and creamy for about 3-5 minutes. Beat in the egg and vanilla until just combined. Don't overmix!
- Fold in the salt, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom and flour. Mix until combined.
- Fold in the oats and raisins until everything is incorporated. (Dough will be sticky)
- Chill the dough for 30 minutes to an hour. Preheat oven to 350°F.
Make the Teddy Bears
- Roll 1 tablespoon of dough roll it into a ball and that's going to be the head. Press it down into a flat disc with the bottom of a glass.Then roll two more balls of dough of 1 TEAspoon each and place them right above that flattened TABLEspoon of dough for the ears. Gently press them together just so that the ears are attached to the head. Next, take one more TEAspoon of dough and place it in the lower center of the head for the snout. Press it down slightly but not completely.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes. Add 2 chocolate chips for the eyes, and an additional chip for the nose.
- Transfer to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
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Other Related Recipes:
Final Notes…
A classic cookie deserves a little upgrade every so often. So I think turning a soft and chewy oatmeal raisin cookie into an adorable teddy bear cookie definitely counts as an upgrade.
So now that the weather is getting cooler and the smell of baking spices are filling our homes, why not bake up a batch of these cookies, put on a good show, and wreak havoc on some delicious teddy bears?
You tell us, did you try out this recipe? Let us know what you think of it in the comments below!
And while you’re here, why not check out some of our other cute cookie recipes to keep that sweet tooth satisfied!
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