CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES - THE NEIMAN MARCUS URBAN LEGEND

I remember when I first got a computer and signed onto the Internet. I knew absolutely nothing about surfing the Net or emailing at all, but at the same time, I needed a quick education because I was writing a weekly cooking column for "The Voice" and had to submit my columns by email. Wow...that seems like a million years ago!

It wasn't long after first logging on that I began to receive junk emails. One of the first was an email that was circulating that had a chocolate chip cookie recipe attached. The story was that the author of the email had gone into Neiman Marcus to have a coffee and a couple of chocolate chip cookies. He was so impressed with the cookies that he asked for the recipe when he went to the cashier to pay. Apparently, the cashier told him it would cost him "two-fifty" for the recipe to which he agreed and the fee was added to his credit card.

The story then told how the credit card statement arrived the following month and he was dinged two hundred and fifty dollars for the recipe rather than the two dollars and fifty cents he thought he was going to be charged. Apparently he called Neiman Marcus to negotiate the bill and was told there would be no price reduction.

That's where things got nasty.

The perturbed patron decided to write out the recipe - and the story - and sent it out over the Internet. Everyone who received the recipe forwarded it to two friends...and so on...and so on... and so on. Needless to say, it went everywhere!

Anyway, I have since learned that this is an Urban Myth and that it never actually happened. Perhaps not, but it was a pretty good story and it showed a lot of us that the Internet could be used in a bad way.

I've held on to this recipe for about twelve years but have never made it because I already have a great recipe I absolutely love. The other day I decided to have a "bake-a-thon" so I could stockpile some goodies for when my kiddies come to stay with me and I thought I would give the "Neiman Marcus" cookies a try. I wanted to compare it to the chocolate chip cookie recipe I have used for years.

This is a good cookie recipe, but I found that balling it out as recommended in the recipe was a bad idea; the cookies didn't flatten out and remained half domed in shape. Not a desirable shape for a cookie in my opinion! I decided to roll the dough into logs (my preferred method), chilled it and then cut off pucks before baking. I also dropped the baking temperature for a longer, slower baking time. I tend to do that with most cookies.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

2 cups butter
2 cups sugar
2 cups brown sugar

4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract

4 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

5 cups blended oatmeal*

1 8 ounce Hershey bar (grated)
24 ounces chocolate chips
3 cups chopped nuts (your choice)

Method:

• Measure oatmeal and blend in a blender to a fine powder. *Note: Measure 5 cups of blended oatmeal after blending to a powder. Do not measure 5 cups of oats and then blend to a powder. There is a definite difference in volume!
• Cream butter and both sugars until light and fluffy.
• Add eggs and vanilla extract to creamed sugars. Mix thoroughly.
• Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt thoroughly.
• Add blended oatmeal to dry ingredients above and mix thoroughly.
• Add creamed sugars to the dry ingredients above and mix thoroughly.
• Add chocolate chips, chopped nuts and grated chocolate to the mixture above.
• Roll into balls and place 2 inches apart on a cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes @ 375 degrees.

Well...that's the original recipe, but I made a couple of changes as stated above. I baked my cookies @ 325 degrees for about 15 minutes and I cut them into pucks from a log shaped roll that I chilled in the fridge for a while.

Here are all of the juicy ingredients. Oooh, look at that chocolate!

Here the oats are poured into the blender and are buzzed up to a powder. Be sure to add a little at a time otherwise you won't be able to blend all of the oats fine enough all at once!!

Voila - the blended oatmeal. Now I measured 5 cups as required!

Here's an action shot of Lola chopping pecans for the cookies. Please pay no mind to her index finger pointed along the back of the knife. Sheesh...I still have work to do!

Creaming the butter....

...adding the sugars...

..."whip it good!"

Add the eggs and vanilla extract.

Combine all dry ingredients except the oats.

Add the oats and blend thoroughly.

Add the chocolate and the nuts.

Mix well.

Add the wet to the dry.

Mix thoroughly!

Roll the dough into logs, wrap and chill for about an hour.

Cut the dough into 3/4 inch pucks and bake @ 325 for about 15 minutes. Because all ovens heat differently, please check your first batch at about the 10 minute mark and determine your baking tome. Remember to bake cookies in the middle rack of the oven. Remember also that you can always bake them longer...but you can never unbake them.

Cookies should be moist and chewy and golden on the bottom - not brown or black!

As mentioned...a slower heat and a bit of patience...

...makes for a pretty nice cookie!!

I recommend this recipe with the modifications I have made. Balling the cookie out results in a dome shaped cookie. This is due to the fact that there is a high ratio of dry ingredients to fat. Pucking them out as I did results in a flat cookie that is still moist and chewy.

If you want to see how I roll out cookie dough into logs to make cookie production easier, follow this link: http://livingstoncooks.blogspot.com/2007/10/whos-your-daddy.html.

You will also see a great recipe for the chewiest sugar cookies ever being made by my children.