Rosy Rock Cookies

Can you guess the unusual ingredient in these moist, rosy rock cookies?

I had a single can of tomato soup in the pantry, grabbed it, and half-heartedly decided to make a tomato soup cake. I like it, it's a cake my mother my occasionally made, but then returned the can to the shelf as I wasn't really in the mood for cake. It's interesting, like a spice cake but different. Anyway, back to these cookies. I wasn't in the mood for cake, but I wanted a little treat. I went through my cookie cookbooks and everything seemed to be either chocolate or caramel. I like those flavors, but only once in a while, and we've had quite a bit of chocolate lately it seems to me. So now what? Oatmeal cookies are among my favorite, but I'm on a quest to find the perfect oatmeal cookie. (My absolute favorite is one that comes from a grocery store bakery, believe it or not.) I've tried the ones on the back on the Quaker oatmeal box, very good, but not exactly what I was looking for. I've tried a couple out of my cookbooks, same results.
So, I do what I always do, I search the Internet, hoping to find something interesting, and different.

And that's when I happened upon these rosy rock cookies. Well, I wanted different and this was certainly different, grins. What caught my eye was the generous use of spices. What intrigued me was the tomato soup.

The batter worked up quickly and easily. I omitted the nuts because Ole Sweetie-Pi has a nut sensitivity but next time I missed the nuts and next time will divide the batter and add nuts to one of the halves.

Rosy rock cookies are a simple, homey cookie, not the least gourmet, but they are good. The flavor of the baked cookie is unusual in that the expectation is that the cookie is going to taste like an oatmeal cookie, and in some ways it does, but there is something different leaves you wondering. While you're sampling to figure out what that something is, have these with a tall glass of cold milk. Delightful! These cookies stayed wonderfully moist for several days, stored in an air tight container, with waxed paper between the layers. Without the waxed paper in between, it became a cookie glop!

Rosy Rock Cookies

1 3/4 cup flour
1 1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
1 cup butter, softened
1 egg
1 can (10 3/4 oz.) condensed tomato soup
2 1/2 cup quick oats
1 cup seedless raisins (I use dried currants)
1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease cookie sheet(s) or use parchment paper or a silplat and set aside.

In large bowl stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, soda, cinnamon and allspice. Add butter, egg and soup. Beat at medium speed 2 minutes, constantly scraping sides and bottom of bowl. Stir in oats, raisins and walnuts.

Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls 1 1/2 inches apart. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until lightly browned.

Recipe says this makes 7 dozen cookies; I probably ended up with 4 dozen.

How does that happen?