Many years ago I was looking for a good oatmeal cookie recipe – something chewy and tasty and easy. And I managed to find my base recipe from allrecipes.com. But I didn’t want a plain oatmeal cookie (and I can’t leave well enough alone), so I set about experimenting.The obvious thing I did first was add some chocolate. Dark chocolate chunks are preferable, and I prefer PC’s The Decadent brand. Then, not loving raisins, I swapped in dried cherries – both for taste and colour. But I sometimes sub dried cranberries instead – they’re more easily found and less costly. I fussed with the spices a bit. Then I added some toasted pecans that were laying about. Because so many of my holiday treats already have pecans or I’m trying to be conscious about those with nut allergies, I leave pecans out half the time.

Though it has a long list of ingredients, there are no complicated steps. Things get even faster and easier when you’ve got a scale – set your mixing bowl down and you can quickly and cleanly measure out all your ingredients. Since my scale isn’t that precise (would love one that comes in 1/2 gram increments!) I stick with the teaspoon measurements for the spices and salts, but hey that’s only another couple spoons to wash!

Ingredients

  • 125g all-purpose flour (1 cup)
  • 2g ground cinnamon (1 tsp)
  • 1g ground nutmeg (1/2 tsp)
  • 8g baking soda (1 tsp)
  • 4g salt (1/2 tsp)
  • 75g dried cherries (1/2 cup)
  • 85g pecans, toasted (1/2 cup)
  • 80g (dark) chocolate chunks (1/2 cup)
  • 160g rolled oats (2 cups)
  • 160g packed brown sugar (3/4 cup)
  • 100g white sugar (1/2 cup)
  • 170g butter (salted), softened (3/4 cup)
  • 1 large egg, slightly beaten
  • 5ml vanilla (1 tsp)

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C)
  2. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl.
  3. Mix in softened butter, then egg and vanilla.
  4. With a #70 cookie scoop, this gives me about 48 cookies. This is about 2 tbsps of dough.
  5. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until edges appear slightly browned.

Leave them on the cookie sheet for about 5-10 minutes to cool before transferring to a cooling rack. I find these are best eaten in a couple of days, but they don’t usually last that long. A hearty cookie that’s great as a fall/winter treat. I’ve also teamed them up with my sister’s pumpkin ice cream to make some rather tasty sandwiches.

The original recipe had this as a cookie-in-a-jar – making a great gift for the holidays – by layering the dry ingredients and tagging it with the additional wet ingredients and baking instructions.