Cowboy Cookies are a classic Southern cookie that are as mysterious as they are delicious. Why are they called Cowboy Cookies? No one really knows. Cowboys never took butter or chocolate chips with them as they drove cattle down the dusty trails. I’d like to believe Cowboy Cookies are a tribute to the nostalgic legend of the cowboy – rustic and bold with a little bit of everything good. Cowboy Cookies shoot from the hip in a way that a plain ol’ chocolate chip or brownie can’t match.
The ingredients for Cowboy Cookies include every delicious cookie ingredient I know – dried fruit, nuts, chocolate and crispy corn flakes. I especially love crunch of the corn flakes.
Hand Mix for Better Texture
Using an electric hand mixer as the additional ingredients (chocolate chips, raisins, nuts) become more dense can harm the motor of your mixer. As the recipe progresses, I switch to mixing with a spoon to save any strain on my poor little hand mixer. Of course, you could use a stand mixer to mix your cookie dough, but the powerful motors in stand mixers can crunch up your corn flakes into small pieces. Hand mixing denser ingredients may require a little muscle, but it only takes a minute and is worth the improved texture of your cookie.
More Chocolate Chips Or Raisins?
Not everyone loves raisins in their cookies, but I do, so I added a full cup. Golden raisins, dried currants, dried cherries, dried blueberries or dried cranberries would make great substitutions for plain old raisins. This recipe calls for only a 1/2 cup of chocolate chips but you can definitely add more by cutting back on the raisins. Simply reduce the raisins to 1/2 cup and increase the chocolate chips to 1 full cup, or eliminate the raisins altogether and use 1 1/2 cups of chocolate chips. Be a cowboy and design your own cookie.
Also, you can elect to make large or small Cowboy Cookies by either portioning the dough into 2oz cookies (56g) or 1oz cookies (28g). Many times I make the dough in advance and freeze the portioned balls for baking later. Obviously, my preference is the 2oz cookie which give you a generous Texas sized portion. Make sure you give the cookies plenty of space on the cookie sheet!
Hearty, sweet and full of nostalgia, Cowboy Cookies are right at home in any cookie jar!
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