At the holidays, my kitchen turns into a fury of activity with flour flying everywhere for the weeks from Thanksgiving to Christmas.   As the official cookie taster, in charge of eating all broken and burnt cookies, this recipe has always been my husband’s favorite!  It is a hearty cookie, don’t know how else to describe it.  It is a bit like a toll house cookie and a granola bar had a baby, I always include it in my Christmas cookie tins to balance out the less virtuous offerings.

If you are my age, you will remember in the 90s an Email that went around with the recipe for a cookie that included an urban myth (or is it?) about a woman who enjoyed a cookie at Neiman Marcus so much, that she asked for the recipe.  Although they gave it to her, she got a surprise when her credit card bill came in and she saw a $250 charge for said recipe.  To get back at Neiman Marcus she decided to give the recipe out to anyone and everyone she knew.  It was the first example I remember of something going viral!  This recipe is based on that one, with a few adjustments I have made over the years.

If you double this recipe you won’t have room in a typical bowl of a Kitchen Aid to stir it, every year I make the same mistake and end up stirring it in a huge stock pot and wonder why I once again thought doubling this was a good idea.  Sometimes in the pre-Christmas baking chaos, logic flies into the air with the flour!

Ingredients

1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks at room temperature)

1 cup pecans

1/2 cup walnuts

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

2 1/2 cups oatmeal (measure then blend in a Cuisinart or blender)

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

3.5 ounce Hershey bar (half of the 7 ounce bars you find in the grocery store)

12 oz. semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  If the butter is not softened, cut it into small pieces to encourage the process.  Chop the nuts, then put them into the oven for 4 minutes on a cookie tray, then cool.

Cream the butter and sugars.  Add in the vanilla and eggs one at a time, blending between additions.  In a large bowl combine your dry ingredients of flour, oatmeal (after you have blended it), salt, baking soda and baking powder, using a spoon or whisk.  Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients a bit at a time while mixing slowly, I use the Kitchen Aid, but a handheld blender works fine.

Chop the Hershey bar.  Add the chopped bar, the nuts and chocolate chips into the batter, mixing with a wooden spoon or strong spatula.  Drop dough onto parchment covered cookie sheets (don’t have to use parchment, I just like how it makes it easier to remove the cookies and to clean-up later).

Small cookies should only take 10-12 minutes, medium 12 minutes and large ones 14-16 minutes.  you will know they are done if you see a bit of golden brown on the edges and a bit on top.

In the winter it is great as part of a holiday assortment of cookies, in the summer it is fantastic to serve with chocolate ice cream as a sandwich, an ultimate favorite of mine!