1 cup of softened butter (I use half salted butter and half butter flavored crisco: it keeps the cookies form flattening out too much and burning, and still keeping the butter flavor and consistency)
1 cup of brown sugar (I honestly don't really know what the difference between using light or dark would be other than strength of flavor, so, if you want it bolder go dark!)
1 cup of granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract (we make our's homemade. it's fantastic.)
2 cups of all purpose flour (unbleached is fine)
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt (I actually "forgot" to put it in... I rarely put salt in my cookies)
1 scant teaspoon of cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon of ginger, cloves, and nutmeg (optional, but I love the spice flavors of fall)
3 cups of old fashioned oats
1 cup of chips- white, dark, milk, or semi chocolate
1 cup of fruit and/or nuts- raisins, cranberries, pecans, etc
For this particular recipe I used white chocolate and cranberries; I think dark chocolate and raisins would be fantastic as well, but I'll have to try that one next time:)
- Preheat at 350° F
- Mix the butter and sugars until creamy and there are no chunks of butter to be seen.
- Add one egg at a time then the vanilla extract.
- Sift all of the dry ingredients together into a separate bowl, then slowly mix into the wet ingredients.
- Mix in the oats, chips and fruit/nuts one ingredient at a time.
- Scoop into one inch balls onto a stone cookie sheet(preferable) or a greased(ew) or parchment covered(best option) metal cookie sheet.
- Squish the balls down and round them out; they're really dense cookies, so they aren't really going anywhere unless you flatten them out.
- Bake from 8 to 12 minutes (know your oven and how hot or easily it bakes, keep checking them). They should be a golden brown around the edges.
- Leave to cool on the sheet for 5 to 10 minutes to stiffen up and finish baking.
- Move to a wire rack to fully cool (or eat) then promptly put in an airtight container to retain moisture.
- :D enjoy!
