I love to bake. I like to cook, but I LOVE to bake!
The first recipe I ever learned (by heart) was a recipe for chocolate chip cookies.
Everyone has a favorite kind of cookie and a favorite cookie recipe. The kind where you can’t resist them (even if you wanted to), and just the smell of those cookies baking makes your heart happy.
Here is one of my favorite recipes. Or rather, one of my “Would you please make this?” or “WOW, these are great!” recipes. I guess that’s why this is one of my favorites – people seem to like these cookies so much. I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the popularity of my Griz cookie recipe. (Another recipe I get asked to make often is my Old Fashioned Brown Sugar Pound Cake. It’s a great Fall recipe!)
You might wonder why they are called Griz Cookies. The original recipe was called “Cowboy Cookie,” but I altered it a little and re-named it. The reason for the name chance?
- My oldest daughter graduated from the University of Montana
- While there, she had a work/study with the football team
- I would make a batch of cookies for her and the football coaching staff each week during the football season and send them UPS
- The mascot of the University of Montana is the grizzly bear
Hence the name Griz Cookies.
I hope you like my Griz cookie recipe; and you don’t have to be a University of Montana fan to make them. You just have to love a really great cookie recipe.
Go Griz!
- 1 cup Crisco Butter Flavored Shortening
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp baking powder
- 2 cups Quaker quick cook oatmeal or rolled oats
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- ¼ cup milk (optional)
- 1 cups chopped nuts (I usually used walnuts, but use whatever kind you like)
- 1 cup shredded coconut
- 1 pkg of chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Using an electric mixer, cream the shortening, granulated sugar, and brown sugar in a large bowl. Add the eggs and the vanilla and beat until well blended. Stir in the baking soda, salt, and baking powder. Add the oatmeal, then the flour. You can add the ¼ cup milk if the mixture seems a little too stiff – I usually needed to add it. Finally, stir in the nuts, coconut and the chocolate chips. Spoon the cookie mixture onto your baking sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Check your first batch a little early to make sure they don’t get done too quickly, and adjust the timer accordingly. Transfer baked cookies to a wire rack to cool.
These cookies are the kind I like – just enough dough to hold together all the “goodies” inside. They are crisp on the outside and soft in the middle, with lots of great flavor in every bite. No skimping on the chocolate chips here!
Got a favorite cookie recipe? Share a link to it in the comments below. I love to try new recipes.
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Joan Merrell is a solo mom to two daughters, a widow, and a security technician at Oregon State Hospital. Oregon native, farm girl and 4H leader, maker of homemade bread and chocolate chip cookies, she balances (more or less) full-time work with caring for a home filled with a teenage daughter, 2 entitled cats, and a hyper German Shepherd. She enjoys gardening and hiking, reading Ted Dekker and Frank Peretti novels, and searches for a few spare minutes to communicate with her grown daughter and son-in-law on her Marco Polo app. Find out more about Joan here.