Mutant Cookies

It started with most excellent intentions. My first thought this morning as I was enjoying a bowl of cereal and blueberries was to find a new recipe to make today. And since it's been a while since I made cookies, they were calling. I reached for a cookbook. I have yet to cook out of The All-American Dessert Book by Nancy Baggett, and flipping through, I saw a recipe called Peanut Butter Munchies that triggered a desire for Monster Cookies. So I sent Andy off to the store for M&M's and hunted down my recipe for Monster Cookies. I had clearly forgotten the quantity of ingredients needed for my Monster Cookies- 1 dozen eggs, 10 cups of oatmeal, etc. I needed much more than M&M's, and since cookies are not a must-have, the Monster Cookies were vetoed. Back to Nancy Baggett's recipe. It was intriguing, but called for vegetable oil in addition to butter- which sounded strange to me- and salted peanuts, which I don't have. And since I didn't want to make a second trip to the store, I started with Nancy's recipe, but made several changes.

In fact, I think I made a few too many changes to consider this a qualifying recipe for my cookbook challenge. Which is too bad because these really are very good cookies. They baked up slightly puffy and I thought I was in for a cakey cookie experience. So I was very surprised when I bit into one and encountered a sandy texture. The peanut butter flavor is faint, and all the add-ins I mixed in provide a new flavor with every bite. It's really the texture that's a winner though, and I have decided that these are keepers in every way. I suspect it's actually the oil that creates that sandy texture, because I remember this cookie from Cookie Madness having a sandy texture. Try them, they are really good, and pretty darn addicting I must say... You can find my revised recipe for Mutant Munchies in the Recipe Trove.