With two little boys in the house you can imagine the number of requests that I get for cookies each week. While you might think those pre-made refrigerated doughs are quick and easy…this recipe is almost just as fast and it’s a million times better!
This recipe is one of the recipes that was in my husband’s mother’s cookbook. His mom passed away before we met but I was lucky enough to get access to her cookbooks and was able to copy some of my husband’s favorite recipes. The recipe for Cowboy Cookies was one that he insisted that I get.
Here’s a picture of the actual recipe…can you tell that it was done on a typewriter? Yep–it’s a really old recipe. These are the cookies that my 40 something year old husband had when he was a little boy.
Now, I have no idea why these are called Cowboy Cookies. I asked my husband and he had no clue either. I did a search of the term and there are a million different versions with the same name but none offer an origin.
Well, even though I can’t tell you where the name comes from – I can tell you that they are delicious! Plus they are really easy…you don’t even need to pull out your mixer!
You’ll notice that my recipe differs slightly from the original. You see I can’t think of any time that I would need 200 cookies–tee hee. The first time I made these, I did the full recipe. Now, I only make a quarter of the recipe. I use a small trigger scoop and generally get 36 – 40 cookies with a quarter batch. That’s more than enough for us!
Keep in mind that you can make the full batch and have cookies to feed an army if needed 😉 I hope you like them as much as we do!
- ½ cup butter, softened
- ½ cup brown sugar, packed
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla
- 1 egg
- 1 cup flour
- ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon allspice
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup oats (quick or old fashioned)
- ¼ cup chocolate chips
- ¼ cup mini M&M's
- ¼ cup chopped nuts (I like walnuts or pecans)
- Preheat oven to 350º F.
- Combine the softened butter, sugars, egg and vanilla and mix by hand until creamed together.
- Sift together the flour, cinnamon, allspice, baking powder, baking soda and salt then add to the butter mixture and stir until combined.
- Gently mix in the oats, chocolate chips, M&M's and nuts.
- Drop onto baking sheet by rounded teaspoon and bake at 350º for 15 minutes.
Thanks for posting the recipe! I think you put baking powder twice and meant one of them to be baking soda. 🙂
baking powder is listed twice…which is the measurement for baking powder and which is the one for baking soda
Sorry about that:
¼ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
Thank you for this! I will be making these this week!!
do you use salted or unsalted butter? can you also use crisco?
I generally always use unsalted for my recipes unless they specifically call for salted 🙂
Not sure about the Crisco as I have never tried that.
Crisco or margarine are interchangeable
You could always scoop the cookies onto a sheet and freeze them, then place in a freezer bag and cook them whenever you want. That way you would have cookies fresh baked whenever you wanted them. Just a thought..
I’ve been reading the comments. I personally feel when we get a recipe and we want them to taste and be just like the recipe then we should not try to substitute anything. Just enjoy the recipe and thank the one who shared that with us. I am so going to enjoy these and my family will too. Thank you for sharing.
thank you for the reciep e i’ll have to make them for mitch and see how he likes them. i can’t eat to many sweets cause of my diabetes, if someone could come up with a diabetic cookie like thae i’d make them
I am going to make the big batch for my cookie exchange at Christmas time using red and green M & M’s
Do you think this recipe can be frozen? I’m considering making the entire batch and freezing in portions. (Typically, you thaw in the fridge for a few hours prior to baking.)
I would think it should be fine. I also freeze many cookie doughs and this one doesn’t have anything funky that would make it any different. I often even pre-portion them with a scoop and freeze on a cookie sheet then when frozen, pop into a Ziploc and freeze until I am ready to use them…that way they are ready to go when I need them!
If I were to need to make the large recipe could you please tell me what the…tes measurement is equivalent to?
Thanks!
Was at first thinking tes was tsp BUT I see tsp used later in original recipe so now am confused. TYVM!
I really think it is also teaspoon…I have many of her recipes and she seems to use tes and tsp interchangeably! I went with teaspoon and they great 😉
Can you use self rising flour?