Old Fashioned Ranger Cookies are my newest food crush. I know. I’m constantly falling in love. What can I say – I’m fickle!
When I was in Toronto with the girls, they asked me to write a post about Breakfast Cookies.
“Mom, remember when you’d stand at the bottom of our staircase with thermoses of coffee, our breakfast and lunch packed, as we headed out the door to work?”
“I do.”
I’d just retired and the girls had just finished their post-secondary. I had all this new-found time so I filled some of it sending them off to work with homemade breakfasts and lunches.
“We miss it… we had a lovely chat here. Could you write a post about breakfast cookies?”
“Why cookies?”
“We love them!”
Of course they do! Dessert for breakfast – it’s perfect. After they asked, I started noticing the ginormous cereal cookies at all the coffee shops. I’m more of a cream cheese and bagel gal so, the ride-on cookies never caught my attention. After sampling a few – a lovely food blogging perk – I headed to Pinterest to see who was cooking what. Holy smokes! Apparently, I live under a rock. Breakfast cookies are the bomb! And they come in all sizes, shapes and ingredient lists including dairy-free, gluten-free, high-fibre, and wannabe breakfast cookies.
When I was filling the girl’s lunch sacks, I made muffins to pack for breakfast. This new cookie craze looks a little like crunchy flat muffins. No matter, they’re fun and you can add any plethora of goodies to make them interesting: dried fruit, nuts, seeds, change the cereals, sweeteners or the flours. I don’t think it would matter. As long as they’re big, part crunchy, part chewy, full of stuff and you eat them before 11 am!
Breakfast Cookies adapted from King Arthur Ranger Cookie recipe
Preheat oven 350*F
Makes: 18 large cookies.
1 cup butter
1 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup multi-grain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cup shredded coconut
2 cups crispy rice cereal
½ sweetened dried cranberries
THE STEPS:
- Beat butter and sugars until light and fluffy.
- Add eggs and vanilla and beat until light.
- In a separate mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda
- Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix until well blended.
- Fold in dried cranberries, coconut, oatmeal and Rice Krispies, mixing just until well blended.
- Drop the dough by 1/3 cups onto lightly greased or parchment-lined cookie sheets.
- Flatten cookies, slightly, with your hand.
- Bake cookies for 15-17 minutes – cookies will be puffed and slightly golden at the edges.
- Remove to a cooling rack.
- Store in a tightly covered container for up to 1 week
THE LOVE: I took the bowl of my stand mixer off and thoroughly scraped the batter off the bottom of the bowl after I folded in the cranberries, coconut and cereals. Then I put it back on the stand and gave it another go until everything was evenly distributed. Be careful not to over mix!
one year ago: 21st century beans on toast
two years ago: banana split bread
three years ago: apple crisp
Thanks for reading.
