Revenge Cookies

There are times when you just need a cookie.  A piece of cake just won’t do it.  Whether the cookie is crispy or chewy (rarely do I go for cakey, cuz, hey, cookie not cake, yeah?) it is a different kettle of fish than a piece of cake.  Which you have to cut, aaaand it’s cakey.  If you get me.  So, I was in a mood.  I needed that cookie and I didn’t have any.  Yeah I had leftover honey cake but ya know.

I dredged mentally through my cookie roster and decided to go nostalgic.  Remember the apocryphal story of the Neiman Marcus cookie scandal?  Where supposedly they charged a woman who loved their cookies $250 for the recipe? Never happened but the recipe which was written in a bunch of versions happened to be really good.  I honestly don’t know anymore whence I got the version that I really love although it was on the internet but I’ve made it on and off for years and my kids still remember the revenge cookies.  In fact, my daughter Rach popped by with most of her kids before Yom Kippur (a really nice surprise) and saw them, snagged one and exclaimed happily, “Revenge cookies! Yay!” So there you go!

There is one part that’s a bit fussy but I do an all in one so it’s much less of a big deal which is that you grind up the oatmeal in the recipe into a floury consistency and then are supposed to grate a chocolate bar.  So, I simply whipped out the food processor and put the oats, flour, nuts and broken up bits of chocolate bar in together, whirled it about till a nice mealy consistency and voila, you’re done.

Another hack I love, is when you are just a small number of people, you think, hmmm, I’ll just halve this recipe shall I? Nay nay I say, make the whole recipe and then make say 1/3, and with the remaining cookie dough, take 2 pieces of parchment paper and make 2 logs, patting them into a nice rounded shape and roll up in the parchment paper (each one separately) and tuck into the freezer.  Next time you feel like a cookie, pull out a log, slice with a sharp knife as many cookies as you want and bake straight from the freezer. Boom, you’re done.

unbaked cookie log on parchment paper

Revenge Cookies

1 cup butter or margarine (225 grams, for the Israelis here, not just a package, if you put in too little it changes the texture)

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 1/2 cups oatmeal (the quick kind)

2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

12 ounces (approximately 2 cups) chocolate chips

1 four ounce bar of chocolate (they used milk, I used bittersweet) which is 100 grams

1 1/2 cups chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Cream margarine and sugars together till fluffy.  Add eggs and vanilla, mix till incorporated.  Put aside.  Take out your food processor with the steel blade.  Put in the oatmeal, flour, salt baking soda and powder and the nuts and 100 gram chocolate bar, broken up into chunks.  Mind you I have a big food processor so all this will fit with no problem.  Pulse it all together till it turns mealy and the chocolate bar turns into tiny slivers in the mixture.  Add the floury mixture to the margarine mixture and beat together in your mixer till incorporated.  Then add the chocolate chips and mix just a few more seconds.  Now, you can make the whole mixture at one go and it’s a LOT of cookies, more than 4 dozen, or you can do as I suggest above and make part of the recipe and roll logs of cookie dough in parchment paper and freeze (only let defrost after slicing briefly before baking).  I freeze briefly even the amount I’m gonna bake because then you can slice rounds, lay on cookie sheet and bake.  Easier!  However, if you wish you can roll into walnut size balls or use 2 teaspoons and drop, as you please. Okay, here comes your personal preference part.  If you bake for 8 minutes, more chewy, if you bake for 9, crispy with a hint of chewy, 10 minutes, crispy.  You’re the boss! Go ahead, revenge is yours 😛