Home Made Dad’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

As much as I love the commercial version of these, I was in a mood to cook up a tribute to my own parents tonight for a big family party.  So I thought I’d whump these up, along with a home-made layered jello similar to the boxed versions my mother used to create.  These cookies are healthier, of course, made with whole wheat and no chemicals, and not quite as flat and hard as the store bought version.  But well worth making, nevertheless. 

This recipe makes about three dozen cookies, and takes about forty minutes by the time you’re munching on nice, warm cookies and the house is redolent with the scent of baking.  Preheat oven to 375 F.

½ cup butter

½ cup solid (chilled) coconut oil

2 cups jaggery (aka raw Indian sugar, or Punjabi Shakkar)  Use brown sugar, if you must.

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 ½ cup unsweetened dried coconut

2 cups unprocessed oats

2 cups whole wheat flour

¾ teaspoon coarse salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup dark chocolate chips

Cream butter and oil together.  Add the jaggery, or brown sugar.  Keep beating till fluffy.  Add eggs and vanilla.  Continue beating on high. 

Coconut and oats should be ground up a bit first.

Dad’s cookies have a certain texture I wanted to replicate, so I put the coconut and oats into the blender, and whizzed for a few moments.  I wanted them fairly mealy, so they’d blend into the cookie.  Put the blended coconut and oats into a large bowl, along with the flour, salt, soda and cinnamon.  Stir to combine, then put mixer onto slow, and add the dry mix a little at a time.  You’ll need to scrape the sides of the bowl with a spatula from time to time.  When they’re pretty much mixed in, add the chocolate chips and mix some more.  These don’t have to be perfectly distributed yet.  The dough will be fairly stiff.

Use your hands to form little balls of dough, less than an inch across.  Place them about two inches away from each other on an ungreased cookie sheet.  Once you’ve got two sheets of dough balls, check for even chocolate chip distribution. Pick out and push in where needed.  Greedy guts me always leaves extra chips in a few cookies for you know who.  Once the sheets are loaded with the dough balls, use a fork to flatten them a bit.  

Slightly flatten with a fork.

Bake at 375 F for about ten minutes. Remove from sheets and cool on racks. (I used four sheets, so I was prepared to fling the next set into the oven when the first set came out.)  

Let cool so you don’t scald yourself.  Then indulge.  I served these with my own version of my mother’s layered jello, which I’ll write about tomorrow.  Stay tuned.  

This recipe has been adapted from http://baking.food.com/recipe/dads-oatmeal-cookies-113568

My brother will be returning to Vancouver tomorrow with a big bag of these Dad’s cookies. I hope he enjoys!

Great with a glass of milk, too!