Cowgirl Cookies

By Texaschef11

Ingredients

• 1 c. shortening
• 1 c. white sugar, granulated
• 1 c. dark brown sugar, packed
• 2 eggs
• 2 c. all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 1/2 c. caramel pieces, roughly chopped
• 1 c. salted pretzel sticks
• 3/4 c. cashews, whole, raw
• 1/4 c. flax seeds
• 1 tbsp. pink peppercorns

Preparation

Step 1

Preheat oven to 350°.

Place cashews on a baking sheet and toast for 6-7 minutes or until slightly golden and fragrant. Set nuts aside to cool.

While nuts are toasting, smash pretzel sticks and peppercorns. The pretzels should be smashed into smaller pieces but not completely pulverized and the peppercorns should be as close to a rough powder as possible. I was able to smash the peppercorns using the back of a metal spoon, but you can also use a spice grinder.

In a large bowl, cream sugars and shortening together. Add eggs and beat until just incorporated.

Beat in flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt until you have a smooth, uniform dough.

Fold in cooled cashews, pretzels, peppercorns, caramel pieces and flax seeds. These are extremely chunky cookies so you will need to use a rubber scraper to mix the dough, and possibly even your hands.

Pull off a teaspoon-sized chunk of dough and roll it between your palms into a ball approximately 1″ around. Place dough ball on a parchment-lined baking sheet and repeat until tray is full. These cookies spread quite a bit while baking so you will not want to crowd your baking sheet – I only baked 8 cookies at a time on my standard size baking sheets.

Bake for approximately 15-16 minutes or until the edges of the cookies are just beginning to turn a light golden brown. The caramel will ooze out of the cookies around the edges – not a cause for concern. You do want to make sure that you don’t overbake the cookies, however, so that the exposed caramel doesn’t burn.

YIELD: approximately 34 cookies