The Paulie
I asked my brother Paul what his top 5 favorite cookies were. This recipe is nearly all those kinds of cookies in one place, except I forgot to put M&Ms in them.
A modified cowboy cookie, it’s packed with (deep breath) oats, coconut, chocolate chips, pecans, raisins and dried cranberries. It’s chewy in the middle and crunchy on the outside, and eats like a meal.
If your tastes happen to vary from. my brother Paul, then have your way with the basic cookie. Replace chocolate chips with M&Ms, peanut butter chips or white chocolate. Forget the raisins and dried cranberries and use dried cherries instead. Pecans not for you? Who says there needs to be nuts anyway.
Paul’s the kind of guy who wants to see people happy. He’d want you to like the cookie named after him, so have your wicked way with it.
The Paulie
What You’ll Need
8 ounces (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup white granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup (120 grams) whole wheat flour (you can replace with all-purpose white flour)
2 cups (185 grams) old-fashioned oats
1 1/2 cups (150 grams) dessicated, unsweetened coconut
12 ounces (340 grams) semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup (75 grams) dried fruit (you choose! raisins, cranberries, cherries, etc.)
3/4 cup ( 80 grams) toasted pecans, chopped
What You’ll Do
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Using a stand or hand mixer, beat the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl regularly.
Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat until the dough stops looking sloshy and is uniform. Add the vanilla.
Add the flour, baking soda and salt and mix until just blended.
This is my favorite part: Add the oats, coconut, chocolate chips, dried fruit and nuts, and mix until just blended. You’ll need to do lots of scraping down of the sides to make sure all the good parts are evenly distributed.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Form 1/4 cup of dough into balls (about 40 grams of dough, or eyeball the equivalent of a big, stonking tablespoon) and place on a baking sheet. Give each dough ball a little pat to smoosh them down slightly and allow them to cook through before the bottoms burn. I would only put 8 on a sheet to ensure room to spread.
Bake 9 to 10 minutes, depending on your oven. Watch carefully towards the end of baking as they can go from almost done to oops! very quickly.
Paul, no doubt, will eat them with a glass of cold milk. Will you?
