Yee ha, Cowboy!

Today, Chris left Edinburgh's cozy surrounds for the bright lights of London. But all pioneers and fortune seekers need some tasty morsels to accompany them on their travels, so we baked up some Cowboy Cookies from our current favourite cookbook, All Cakes Considered. The quantities given in the recipe turned into around 35 cookies in all, so I had to do the decent thing and eat some of them myself before he took a batch for the car. One tip for next time would be to add more chocolate chips as there didn't seem to be enough to spread through the whole mixture. But they were deliciously soft and nutty flavoured regardless. Two days on, there is 1 left!

Ingredients (baking conversion tables)


2 cups golden caster sugar

1 cup vegetable fat for baking (shortening/ Stork)
2 large eggs, beaten
2 cups of plain flour
1tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1 and a half cups of almonds and chocolate chips mixed together - or any combination of nuts, chocolate, cherries etc that you like.

1. preheat the oven to 180 degrees (350F). Line 2 baking trays with parchment paper.
2. Combine the sugar and vegetable fat until well blended. Add eggs and beat until blended. Add vanilla extract and beat briefly.
3. In a separate bowl dry whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt. Add to the creamed mixture and beat slowly until blended.
4. Add the oats, beating until they are mixed into the dough.
5. Add the nuts and chocolate and mix well.
6. Drop the cookies by the tablespoon onto the baking sheets (about 6 per sheet)
7. Bake each sheet for around 10-12 minutes. You may need to repeat this for several batches but you can reuse the same parchment paper until it browns at the edges. Allow to cool for 5 minutes before moving the cookies onto a plate. 
8. Savour them with a cup of coffee, a glass of cold milk or some root beer. Yum!