We love cookies at our house, especially a good chocolate chip cookie. Coming from New England, our idea of a chocolate chip cookie is based on the Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. We don't add anything to our cookie outside of chocolate chips and for those who like nuts, walnuts. Because we make an oatmeal cookie that my grandmother always made, Nannie's Oatmeal Cookies, we don't have as big a library of oatmeal cookies. As I was looking over the two recipes, outside of Nannie's using 2 cups of brown sugar vs 1 cup of brown sugar and 1 cup of white sugar, the base cookie ingredients are identical.
My mother in law cut this recipe out of her Southern Living magazine and thought it looked like a good recipe, it was called Jana's Chocolate Chip Cookies. It was a fairly simple recipe and it had otameal and a grated bar of milk chocolate in it. With Easter around the corner, I always like trying new recipes.
As I picked up the ingredients at the supermarket, instead of a plain milk chocolate bar, I grabbed a Symphony bar with toffee bits and almonds. I love the creamy caramel taste and thought it might go well with the oatmeal. I started laughing, "Do I ever follow the directions correctly?" Probably not!
The recipe was basic with brown and white sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour, salt, baking soda and powder and lots of chocolate chips. The only difference was the grating of the Symphony bar. The cookies were easy to make and before all the cookies came out of the oven, I was cleaned up and ready to taste these chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. The house smelled wonderful as I bit into the hot cookie. I thought they were very good. With the oatmeal, pecans and the milk chocolate, there was a nutty caramel taste to the cookies. They were crunchy to start and chewy to finish. My family absolutely loved them...then there was my mother. She loves her mother's oatmeal cookies. She thought they were good, but still loves Nannie's Oatmeal Cookies better. I guess it could be like me...I am always in search of the BEST chocolate chip cookie. To date, I have tried so many, but outside of my traditional - Andria's Chocolate Chip Cookies - only one chocolate chip cookies stands out - Jacques Torres's Chocolate Chip Cookie. I apologize to all the chocolate chip cookie recipes to date, Jacques is the best one.
As for Jana Kramer's Chocolate Chip Cookies - I would rather call them Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies. It's the oatmeal that makes the cookie - plus, it wouldn't compete in my search for th BEST chocolate chip cookie. Next to Nannie's, I would give it a strong second. It was a great cookie with a grated milk chocolate bar twist - I'll defnitely make these again.
Jana's Chocolate Chip Cookies (Adapted from Southern Living)
Ingredients
- 1 cup of butter, softened
- 1 cup of sugar
- 1 cup of light brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla
- 2 cups of flour
- 1 teaspoon of baking powder
- 1 teaspoon of baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt
- 2-1/4 cups of oatmeal, I use old fashioned oats
- 1- 4 ounce bar of milk chocolate, grated - I used a Symphony Bar with Almonds and Toffee Bits
- 2 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 1-1/2 cups of chopped pecans
Preparation:
1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, mix flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside.
2. In a large mixer, place butter and sugars and mix until creamy and blended 1-2 minutes.
3. Add eggs one at a time, mixing until incorporated, then add vanilla.
4. On low speed, begin to add the flour mixture. Then add the grated chocolate.
5. Once blended, add the oatmeal, chocolate chips and pecans.
6. Place a well rounded tablespoon of dough for each cookie onto a cookie sheet. (Two inches apart) Slightly flatten the cookie mound.
7. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until slightly golden and the dough is dry.
8. Allow the cookies to rest for 2 minutes before placing them on a cookie rack.
Makes 48-60 cookies. These cookies freeze well, too!
