I have no idea where Mom found this recipe years ago. I am pretty sure it was in a “how to Mom” type book. We rarely made chocolate chip cookies growing up, but we made these often. Usually we made them drop cookies, but bar style gets them done a lot faster! They are a dryer, crispier cookie, so add a little extra water if desired.
While you can use any type of cereal, corn flakes or rice cereal is the best. One day I made them for the family I was babysitting and used Cheerios. Dom informed me that I could put most anything I wanted into the cookies I made for them, but NEVER use Cheerios again 🙂
Use 1 cup of your favorite “fillings”. Growing up we usually used half unsweetened coconut flakes and chocolate chips. But mix and match with walnuts, pecans or other favorite nuts, raisins, craisins or dried cherries (or other dried fruit sliced in small pieces) and your favorite chocolate chips.
Aunt Bonnie made us these cookies for the first time nine years ago. She told us that “if you break them into three pieces without talking, your wish comes true”. It has never been proven, since my kids can’t stop talking long enough to break a cookie into three pieces 🙂
Allan and I discovered this recipe in Grandma Reble’s collection when I went to Colorado with the McGuire’s for the first time. Since getting married, we go to Colorado every few years and usually make at least one recipe from Grandma’s collection.
As you can see from the notes, Grandma thought they were “very good”. We still make them often because they have always been one of our favorite cookies. Years later, Oma gave Andrea a very similar recipe.
In our family, we do not use butterscotch chips. If we use chocolate chips, they are “Cowboy Cookies”, but if we use M&M’s they are “Cowgirl Cookies”. I can not remember who insisted on that name change, but it was probably Andrea.
We discovered this recipe many years ago in a cookbook at Grandma Reble’s house. I do not know the name of the cookbook, but it has a bright pink cover and it is a collection of recipes from different people in CO. We try new recipes from this book every time we visit Grandma’s house.
These are larger cookies, so we usually make a half batch.
Andrea showing off a cow chip before our cow chip throwing contest.
This is the first recipe that Megan learned to make on her own. She loves peanut butter, so she quickly memorized the recipe. This has turned into “her” specialty and she asks to make it often.
To make it different, Megan will sometimes add mini chocolate chips, or add melted chocolate to the top.
Written for Auntie Kristi from memory, September 2018
For some reason, I did not bring a chocoate chip cookie recipe when we moved to Slovakia. My friend, Joan Britton, gave me this recipe and told me the dough was really thick (her recipe called for one egg), but was the best recipe. I could not find chocolate chips there, so I just cut up chocolate bars.
We took them to work to share and I often left out the chocolate for our friend who was allergic to it. The cookies are still very good without chocolate!
When we moved overseas again, the eggs were smaller and we discovered two eggs worked very well. We also could not find brown sugar, so we started using molasses instead. Even though we can get brown sugar here, we prefer being able to adjust the molasses to our own personal tastes.
I do not think I ever had a ladyfinger cookie until Mark was teething. We could not find “normal” teething biscuits, so we bought ladyfingers instead. They were also good with tea.
Years later, I discovered they were also a main ingredient in tiramisu. They are available at stores, but not often easy to find. So we learned how to make our own.
Audrey learned how to first make these when she was eleven. She continues to make them, usually with chocolate chips and occasionally with pecans.
Meringues are not super hard to make, but they will not set up on a humid day or if there is any yolk in the egg whites. Sometimes it feels as if you have to beat the whites “forever”. But these are well worth it
