Pecan Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies

I make your house smell amazing

So, I sort of fell in love with these cookies as I was playing around with what I wanted in an ultimate cookie. I like chocolate chip cookies, and I have a favorite recipe, but sometimes I want the dough around the cookies to be a bit more…fantastic. Aging regular chocolate chip cookie dough for about 3 days in the fridge helps tremendously, but I don’t always have time for that. And besides, sometimes you are looking for a way to up the ante a bit. I think these cookies fit the bill. They are delicious, packed with the flavor of pecans and oats, but rippled through with chocolate chips or chunks as well as chocolate shavings. Doesn’t sound bad right?

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Pecan Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies

This makes a large amount of cookie dough.  It should yield about 5 dozen cookies.  Plenty to make and enjoy, give away, and freeze the uncooked dough for the later.  You will note that this dough uses salted butter, salted nuts, it has salt in the dough, and also sprinkled salt on top.  It is not too much, as it balances the sweetness in the rest of the ingredients, but if you are worried it is too much, you can easily skip the last sprinkle, or even cut down on the added 1/2 teaspoon.  But I would try it first.  It makes a nice balanced flavor.  

Ingredients

  • 1 cup butter
  • 1 cup dark brown sugar
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla
  • 2 ½ cups oatmeal
  • 2 cups flour
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 12 ounces chocolate chunks or chips
  • 4 ounces dark chocolate
  • 8 ounces roasted salted pecans
  • flaky or kosher salt to taste

Instructions

  1. Heat oven to 375 degrees.
  2. Cream together butter and both sugars. Stir in eggs and vanilla.
  3. Finely grind oatmeal and 4 ounces of dark chocolate in a blender or food processor. Depending on the size of my chocolate, I either start it at the same time as the oatmeal or do it after. Take the roasted salted pecans and quickly blitz them in the food processor until finely chopped until the size is smaller than the size of a pea (more like a lentil), but before it turns into flour or nut butter, add to the oatmeal and grated chocolate. Combine the oatmeal/pecan/chocolate mixture with the flour, salt, baking powder and soda in a medium bowl, and slowly add it to the wet ingredients. Beat just until combined. Add the chocolate chunks or chips to the batter. Mix just to combine.

  4. Drop by heaping tablespoonfuls, 2 inches apart, on a greased cookie sheet.  Sprinkle with a few grains of flaky or kosher salt.  Bake for 10 minutes.  Then leave to firm up a bit before moving to a cooling rack.  If your dough is cold, you may need to bake for a 1-2 minutes more.

Recipe Notes

You can easily make these cookies into balls and freeze for later use. To bake, either bake directly from frozen (you will need to cook them a little longer) or let them defrost first. If the cookie balls are very cold when they go in the oven, the cookies will not spread as much. You can take them out about halfway through cooking and press lightly with a spatula to encourage them to spread a bit more if desired.