Cookies, Cowboy

By fireandfrost

from Caroline Black in Managua Nicargua

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup light brown sugar (packed)
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 2 cups old-fashioned oats (generous)
• 2 cups flour (I think it really makes a difference to use King Arthur all-purpose unbleached)
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup shredded coconut
• 1 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Preparation

Step 1

•Preheat the oven to 350 and lightly spray your cookie sheet with pam

•Beat the butter and sugars together with an electric mixer until smooth, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until fluffy, about 1 1/2 minutes more.

•(Technically, the recipe calls for combining all the dry ingredients, from flour to cinnamon, in a separate bowl and then adding it to the wet, but I usually skip this and...) Add the oats, flour, soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon to the butter mixture and stir until well combined.

•Stir in the chocolate chips and coconut.
•Use a scant 1/4 cup of dough per cookie. (I spray a 1/4 cup measure with pam to use). Use your fingertips to flatten each cookie to about 1/3 inch thick. Bake about 12 minutes. The big secret of these cookies is to undercook them - they should be only a very light brown and still have patches of moistness on top. So when you make them smaller, Rebecca, closely watch the cookies and take them out before you think you should. Let them cool on the sheet 5 minutes and then let them cool completely on a cooling rack or paper towels (cool completely, yeah right). If you feel like your cookies spread too much during baking (which happened to me in Mexico, but not here?!), pop the dough in the fridge until it's chilly, but workable. Yee Haw!