And here are the questionable cookies

By Mir
September 25, 2006
Category Detritus

Because you’re being such good sports about my last post, which in point of fact actually put ME to sleep, I thought I’d share the cookie recipe. [Also I decided to do this and then my hosting provider had a massive service crash and I was just GONE for a while and now you surely need cookies to recover.] And then you too can listen to your children whine “But I wanted CHOCOLATE CHIP!!”

This recipe started out as something else and I tweaked it here and there because that’s what I do, either because I’m making do with ingredients on hand or because I’m just being wild and crazy. (That’s me, WILD and CRAZY with BAKED GOODS. I’m the sort of person your mother warned you about.) It is now my very own recipe, so I’m not crediting anybody else.

Unless you hate them. In that case? This recipe totally came from someone else. Someone ugly and mean, in fact.

Cranberry Orange Banana Oatmeal Too Many Words In The Name Cookies

Ingredients:

1 c. shortening
1/2 c. butter
1 c. white sugar
1 c. brown sugar
2 eggs
2 c. mashed banana
3 1/2 c. rolled oats
3 c. flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp salt (yes, really; don’t be afraid!)
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
some orange-flavored Craisins

To make:

Preheat oven to 350. Locate your cookie sheets. Wave the cloud of fruit flies away from the bunch of sad, black bananas. Peel and mash bananas. Reason that any fruit flies caught in the pulpy goo will likely be unnoticeable, and possibly a good source of fiber.

Cream together fats and sugars until light and fluffy. (Mmmmm… fats and sugars.) Congratulate yourself on the wise, wise addition of brown sugar even though the original recipe called for only white. Brown sugar makes everything more delicious. Add in eggs and banana pulp and incorporate well. Remind yourself that you have to stop sneaking tastes, now that the eggs are in. (Brown sugar is yummy, but salmonella is not.)

In a separate bowl, mix together remaining ingredients other than the Craisins. Add by cupsful to the wet mixture until well incorporated. Turn the mixer off and mix the Craisins in by hand. How many Craisins? Whatever’s left in the bag. Add them while the kids aren’t looking and then insist that you didn’t add anything; those must be ants. Watch children recoil in horror.

Drop by generous tablespoons onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 14-16 minutes. This is a moist, cakey cookie. Don’t leave them in the oven until they look nice and crunchy because that will never happen. They will brown at the edges and along the peaks, a bit, and then they’re done. Allow to cool on the sheets for a couple of minutes before moving to cooling racks. The cookies are delicate and must be handled carefully, otherwise they will break during transfer and you’ll have to eat them. Which is tragic. Particularly the third or fourth time it happens.

Allow to cool completely and then store in an airtight container. These also freeze well, so freeze half the batch so you don’t eat them all, you pig.

18 Comments

  1. MommyHam

    you know me (us) too well. thanks for the admonition to freeze ’em.

  2. Susan

    I think I just gained three pounds reading that. Mmmmmm, cooookies.

  3. Michelle

    I’m always looking for new cookie recipes–I’ll have to try ’em.

  4. Janis

    Nice work, Mrs. Cleaver. And your hair? Still fabulous, I’m sure.

  5. carrien

    Um, to my kids these would totally be the equivalent of chocolate ship cookies. They would think they are in cookie heaven. This is because they are too little, and I have been vigilant, and so they don’t know that mommies ground almond and flower and maple syrup cookies aren’t real cookies. (No sugar chocotate chips etc.)

    SO your kids should be saying “thank-you mommy for the amazing cookies” every single day.

  6. tori

    You sould totally enter the quaker oats cookie contest. I entered, but I think yours might be better. So, maybe don’t enter? Or do, that would be cool if you won because I told you to enter.

  7. karrie

    I think replacing the nasty, shriveled craisins with some dark chocolate chunks would make these even better! Dark chocolate is loaded with antioxidants and is killer in oatmeal cookies. Everyone wins.

    Shortening scares me though.

  8. rachel

    I need to find a way of substituting for oatmeal in cookies. I miss a good oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. mmmmm…. these sound good too.

    And after making 52 pocket pies today, my kids better not expect any more treats for a while. mmmm…. ganache pies.

    for Karrie – I use Spectrum Organics shortening. I just can’t quite manage to buy Crisco. It started when we couldn’t have soy, but it’s continued long past that. *squick*

  9. Daisy

    Mmmm…these sound great! I like Craisins, too (being a good Wisconsin native).

  10. Melissa

    Mmm, brown sugar DOES make everything taste better. And if you’re really adventurous, DARK brown sugar is even better than that. But I don’t know what your wild-and-crazy-baked-goods limit is.

  11. chris

    yeah shortening is kinda icky isn’t it? But man it makes cookies taste good.

  12. Suebob

    Silly Mir. Everyone knows that fruit flies are protein, not fiber!

  13. birchsprite

    I live in England….what’s a craisin?

  14. angelfeet

    Yes, me too, I’m in England – what is a Craisin? Is there something we can substitute for them or do we have to get you to ship some?

  15. David

    Craisin: A dried cranberry, much like a raisin, thus craisin. (Gee, I hope that’s right and it’s not some new hybrid fruit)

    Obviously, someone ratted me out about eating that whole batch of almond-flavored spritz cookies within 24 hours of having made them. As though that was unusual or something. *mind-boggled*

  16. InterstellarLass

    I admit it. I crack cookies during the transfer process ON PURPOSE. Otherwise they’d be gone before I could eat any.

  17. Vicky

    I’m coming in way late here, but I’m telling you Mir if you were to publish a cookbook…I would buy five copies! The recipe sounds delicious, but the instructions were the best part! I’m printing many copies for myself, my friends and my mothers (in-law and the other one).

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