Kelly’s Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Ranch Cookies

I’ve been looking for a cookie recipe for some time that used whole wheat flour and oatmeal. I found one by Mrs. Fields (Peanut Butter Oatmeal Ranch Cookies) that included whole wheat, oats, peanut butter, honey, sunflower seeds and raisins. AND it only used one stick of butter instead of the usual 2 sticks. You can find her original recipe in the Mrs Fields Cookie Book. And according to what I saw, you can get this book on Amazon for one cent!  Ah!  And she has some fabulous recipes in there!  I find that I'm always adding salt to her recipes...but what do I know? She's the millionaire cookie maker, not I.


My husband has high cholesterol, so I want to feed him as many oats and whole grains as possible. I really like the idea of only one stick of butter for that reason as well. I’m also a little stingy with my butter so a cookie recipe that tastes good and doesn’t use half my butter at once is a GREAT thing!

These cookies are not decadent, but they’re very good, and make a great “lunch bag” addition for my husband. He’s also the reason used chocolate chips in place of the raisins.  So here's my "tweaked" recipe.


Ingredients:
¾ cup Whole Wheat Flour
¾ cup all purpose flour
½ tsp. baking POWDER
½ tsp. salt
1 cup oats (old fashioned or quick)
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
½ cup salted butter, softened
½ cup crunchy peanut butter
1/3 cup honey
2 large eggs
2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
½ cup sunflower seeds
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 300° F.

Combine flours, baking powder, salt and oats in a bowl with a wire wisk and set aside.

In the bowl of your kitchen aid mixer, beat sugar and butter at medium speed to form a grainy paste. Add the peanut butter, honey, eggs and vanilla. Blend thoroughly.

Add the flour mixture, sunflower seeds and chocolate chips. Blend at low speed until combined. Be cautious not to overmix.

Drop the cookie batter by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets, 2 inches apart. Bake for 23-25 minutes until bottoms turn golden brown. Immediately transfer cookies with a spatula to a cool flat surface. © Kelly Rose 2010

Notes: I love, love love, my kitchen aid.  I've been dreaming of the meat grinder attachment. Every kitchen needs a kitchen aid...every cook, needs a kitchen aid, but truly, I would NOT be baking bread with out it.  I do NOT knead by hand, and I don't intend to start. Don’t eat these cookies when they’re hot, they fall apart too easily. Don’t overbake, because with the whole wheat, they get hard in a hurry if you don’t watch the time. Hint: Always put the timer a minute or two lower than recommended to check the cookies along the way to the finish line. That way, you’ll know exactly how long to bake YOUR cookies. Everyone’s oven and altitude is different. And again, these are not melt in your mouth decadent cookies..they’re good, and you can feel good about serving a cookie packed with healthy ingredients and lower fat content. But don’t be misled, this is not the place where you will always find healthy and low fat recipes. This is all about stuff I like.

The whole wheat I used in this recipe was from a friend of mine. We’re trading a bag of her locally grown organic whole wheat flour for one of my new Stampin’ Up! catalogs. Smile! I already have my flour, she doesn’t get her catalog until the new ones come out in July. Interested? Check my Stampin Up! website blog for info on getting yours!

Let me know what you think of the recipe...
Kelly