Smitten Kitchen versus Martha Stewart. Can’t go wrong really. Just depends on what you’re looking for. I like a hearty, chewy oatmeal cookie where the oatmeal is the star. My husband likes a thin oatmeal cookie – not sure if he likes crispy or chewy. In either recipe I needed to omit any nuts for the little guy and myself. We didn’t really miss it.

What I enjoyed about the Smitten Kitchen recipe: good chew, good body and texture. I chilled the batter, as recommended, for about one hour before baking (much easier to handle). I did need to substitute dried cranberries for raisins since I didn’t have any raisins on hand in the pantry.

As for the Martha Stewart oatmeal toffee cookie, the toffee makes the cookie. The “nut (toffee) free” version has no depth of flavor to me. We did not need to chill the batter prior to baking, but I’m wondering how that might change the recipe, if at all. We didn’t roll the dough into logs and cut as written because we were lazy. We just used our little cookie/ice cream scoop. This may be why our cookie looks nothing like the picture on Martha’s website. Pretty sure all our ingredients were fresh and measured correctly, too, but I found the cookie to be a little too dry and crumbly for my taste.

Regardless, the kids enjoyed taste testing… Ollie said, “MOM! Can I take a picture, too?” Sure, buddy.