At 6:30AM I took my poodles outside and turned the sprinklers in our vegetable gardens on. As the water droplets hit the leaves, I watched as the red tomatoes, green basil, purple eggplant and other prime produce started to glisten in the early morning sun. While walking my pooches back to the house, I decided to bake cookies today. A girl cannot live on tomato sandwiches and caprese salad forever. The eggplant will live to see another day too. It's cookies I crave.
This is the paragraph where I am supposed to divulge where I got this recipe, share a personal story about it and/or report its history. Truth told, I have no recollection of how I got it (no record of my original source). That's easy to understand. Having raised three boys during the 1980's, I have numerous recipes for chocolate-chip-based cookies -- us moms who volunteered to bake for elementary school fundraising bake sales exchanged our cookie recipes freely. It happened all the time, but, back then, I had no idea I'd be writing a cooking blog someday. Trust me. It's an excellent recipe. Why? Because it is still in my file. It's kid-tested and mother approved.
Oatmeal, peanut butter & chocolate chip: 3 favorites in 1 cookie.
1/2 cup salted butter, at room temperature, very soft (1 stick)
1/2 cup lightly-packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup crunchy peanut butter
1 large egg
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup unbleached-all-purpose flour
3/4 cup old-fashioned rolled oats, not instant oatmeal
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk-chocolate chips
~Step 1. In a large bowl, place butter, brown sugar, sugar, peanut butter, egg and vanilla. On high speed of hand-held electric mixer, cream ingredients together, while scraping sides of bowl down with a rubber spatula, about 1 full minute. Lower mixer speed to medium and incorporate the flour, baking soda and salt, followed by the oatmeal, scraping down sides of bowl as you mix.
~Step 2. Remove mixer. Using spatula, fold in the chocolate chips. Using a 1 3/4" ice-cream scoop as a measure, place balls of cooking dough, well-apart, on each of 2, 17 1/2" x 12 1/2" baking pans that have been lined with parchment. Bake, one-pan-at-a-time on center rack of 340º oven, 12-14 minutes, until barely browned. Remove from oven and cool, in pans, 3 minutes prior to using a spatula to transfer cookies to wire rack to cool completely, 1-1 1/2 hours.
Bake in 340° oven, 12-14 minutes, remove from oven & cool in pans 3 minutes, transfer to wire rack to cool completely:
Crispy outside & chewy inside w/a salty edge -- perfection:
Oatmeal Peanut-Butter Milk-Chocolate-Chip Cookies: Recipe yields 2 dozen, 3"-round cookies.
Special Equipment List: hand-held electric mixer; large rubber spatula; 1 3/4" ice-cream scoop; 2, 17 1/2" x 12 1/2" baking pans; parchment paper; thin spatula; wire cooling rack
Cook's Note: For generations, we Americans have had a love affair with chocolate chip cookies. Surveys unanimously and overwhelmingly place the chocolate chip cookie at the top of our all-time favorite cookie list for over three-quarters of our population, and, it all started with the all-American Toll House cookie. Who do we thank for and what's the history behind this iconic cookie? To find out, read my post ~ The Original Nestlé's Toll House Cookie Recipe ~. Trust me. I'm certain you'll find it fascinating.
"We are all in this food world together." ~ Melanie Preschutti
(Recipe, Commentary and Photos courtesy of Melanie's Kitchen/Copyright 2017)
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