Home, home on the ranger cookie

I know I put a lot of cookie recipes on this blog, but I have a great love for cookies. They are normally small, hopefully moist, and deliciously sweet. Unfortunately for me, too many cookies are far too sweet, and make not only my teeth but also my stomach hurt. Recently I have been a far greater fan of cookies which have more going for them than the simple fact that they are a cookie. That's why when I develop a cookie recipe, I try to use less sugar than similar recipes, so that the other flavors may come closer to the surface.

This being the case, I would have to say that one of my all-time favorite cookies has to be the ranger cookie. There is just something about eating a cookie that is half-way to being a granola bar that appeals to the more my more, shall we say, grown-up tastes. Really: there is so much good stuff in this cookie that I would definitely consider it a decent breakfast food. By the way, we are just going to ignore the fact that I consider any cookie to be a good breakfast food. Deal?

Ranger cookies are another thing I can actually remember about my childhood. Back then it was mainly my mom or my brother who made them, and I remember enjoying pilfering what felt like fistfuls of dough to snack on, it was that good. To be honest, I was never completely successful making these cookies according to my mom's recipe, so I have made a couple changes of my own: halving the sugar, increasing the egg, and replacing butterscotch chips with chocolate chips.

I won't promise that these cookies are good for you, but they are definitely good for your cravings. Trust me when I say that every person I have made these cookies for has become addicted to them. They are unlike any other cookie I have tried, but I would try them again and again and again.
Skip the tutorial and go straight to the recipe.
Download nutrition information.

Step 1:

Preheat the oven to 350°F.
You know, now might be a good time to quickly explain why I always start a baked recipe with preheating the oven. Believe it or not, this step is important, but is often overlooked because it is so simple. When cooking something like a roast that will be in the oven for close to or over an hour, I don't typically worry about preheating. But for something that will be baking for less time than that, preheating can make the difference between a recipe turning our successfully and it flopping. Ovens need longer to preheat than they say because there is a lot of metal to heat up. The little light in your oven only tells you when the air has reached a certain temperature, not when the oven is preheated. That is why I always preheat the oven at the beginning of a recipe; so that by the time I am ready to put my stuff in the oven, my oven will be ready to go.

Step 2:

Cream 1 cup room temperature, unsalted butter until light and fluffy.
This will take a few minutes, but be patient and give your butter a good beating.

Step 3:

Add 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup brown sugar and cream, again until light and fluffy.
Do I need to repeat myself?

Step 4:

Add 3 medium eggs, one at a time, mixing completely between each egg and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Now would also be a good time to add 1 tsp vanilla extract.
Why in the world would I use 3 medium eggs when we have perfectly good other size eggs? Well, the short answer is that I only had medium eggs when I wrote the recipe. The long story is that I've only had medium eggs every time I've made these cookies, so I just did the recipe for what eggs I had. I you don't have medium eggs, you can use 2 large eggs instead. Your cookies will still be good, just maybe not quite as moist.

Step 5:

Combine 2 cups flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp baking soda, and 1 tsp baking powder. Slowly add to the creamed mixture.
The dough is going to be really sticky at this point, but don't add any more flour. There are still more dry ingredients to add which will fix the sticky softness. I have tried adding all the dry ingredients in one step before and ended up with overly dry pockets and sections of unmixed batter. It's been my experience that it is best to add the dry ingredients in two groups, which is what I am going to be doing here.

Step 6:

Add 2 cups oatmeal, 1 cup shredded coconut, 2 cups corn flake cereal, and 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips. Mix either by machine or by hand until the "chunkies" and evenly distributed.
I have a few things to say here, so be patient with me. As far as the oatmeal is concerned, you are free to use either instant or old-fashioned oats in this recipe. The instant oats give a fine texture, so I typically use those, but either will work. The next bit is about the corn flake cereal. I often use a combination of regular and frosted corn flakes because I like it, but again, use whichever you prefer. Now on to the chocolate chips: semi-sweet or nothing at all. These cookies don't like the sweetness of milk chocolate, and dark chocolate is too far the other way. Semi-sweet are my chip of choice for pretty much all of my recipes because I feel they have the perfect balance of chocolaty flavor and mild sweetness.

Step 7:

Drop the cookies by walnut-sized balls (#50 disher) onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Flatten the balls slightly, then stick the pan in the oven and bake for 10-12 minutes, or until they barely start to turn color. Allow to cool slightly on the pan before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
This is another step that is often overlooked in recipes. Cookies aren't completely cooked when they come out of the oven. They need those few minutes on the hot pan to finish up and to give the starches and proteins in the cookie a chance to completely set and firm up. Trying to move a cookie before it's ready will only end in tears.

Ranger Cookies:  Yields 4 dozen cookies
1 cup butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 medium eggs or 2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
2 cups oatmeal
1 cup shredded coconut
2 cups corn flakes
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°F. Cream butter until light. Add sugars and cream until fluffy and light in color. Add eggs one at a time, mixing completely between each addition. Stir in vanilla. Combine flour, salt, soda, and baking powder, then add to the creamed mixture. Add the oatmeal, coconut, corn flakes, and chocolate chips, mixing by hand if necessary. Drop onto a parchment-lined baking sheet using a #50 disher, or by walnut-sized balls. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until lightly browned. Allow to cool slightly on the pan before transferring to a wire rack and allowing to cool completely.
Download nutrition information.