Orphan One Hundred Cookies from ‘A Real Southern Cook in Her Savannah Kitchen’
This week we’re spotlighting recipes from A Real Southern Cook in Her Savannah Kitchen by Dora Charles (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), a collection of authentic Southern classics. Try making the recipes at home and let us know what you think!
Photograph by Robert S. Cooper
By Dora Charles
Orphan One Hundred Cookies
Makes about 100 cookies
I got this cookie recipe with the wacky name from my Aunt Laura, who can’t remember who gave it to her. So these cookies have no home and no mama. They’re chewy, crisp, sandy, rich, buttery, and light, all at the same time. It’s hard to stop eating them, so it’s a good thing the recipe really does make a hundred cookies. They have a secret ingredient: crunchy Rice Krispies.
3½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
½ teaspoon salt
2 sticks (½ pound) butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cup sweetened coconut flakes
1 cup chopped pecans
2 cups (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup Rice Krispies
Set the oven to 350°F and adjust the rack positions to the top and lower thirds. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Mix together the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt in a bowl and set aside.
In a large bowl, with an electric mixer on medium speed, cream the butter and the two sugars until light and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the oil, egg, and vanilla and mix well. On low speed, add the flour mixture and then the remaining ingredients one at a time, beating until everything is mixed in well.
Measure out a tablespoon of cookie dough, roll it into a ball, and place it on one of the cookie sheets. Repeat to make more cookies, leaving at least 1-inch between them. Flatten each cookie with a fork to about 1/8-inch thick.
Bake, rotating the sheets at the halfway mark, until the cookies get slightly golden around the edges, 12 to 14 minutes. I like them chewy, so I cook them closer to the 12-minute mark; if you want them crisper, bake for 14 minutes. Don’t over-bake. Cool the cookies on the pans for 5-minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool completely. Let the baking sheets cool completely between batches and repeat with the remaining dough.
Store in well-sealed tins.
Tips
The bigger the cookies are, the chewier and softer they’ll be.
If you want to make smaller cookies, use a teaspoon of cookie dough. The smaller cookies bake much faster; start checking at 9-minutes.
Reprinted with permission from A Real Southern Cook in Her Savannah Kitchen by Dora Charles (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).
More cookies to love:
Gooey Salted Chocolate Chunk Cookies Are the Stuff Dreams Are Made of
How to Make Bake-Ahead Batches of Milk Bar’s Famous Compost Cookies
Chocolate-Vanilla Bean Pinwheels from ‘Classic Cookies with Modern Twists’
