Ranger Cookies

Here is the recipe for Mark's all-time favorite cookies. For the first time, Mark and I celebrated Christmas with my family. One night I made tacos for dinner and made brownies and Ranger cookies for dessert. Mark couldn't eat the brownies because they contained butter but I made the Ranger cookies with Earth Balance non-hydrolyzed margarine just for him. There were no takers on the brownies; everyone wanted a Ranger.

Ranger Cookies

2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. baking soda
2/3 cup (1 stick plus 2 2/3 TBS) unsalted butter, slightly softened
1/2 cup white vegetable shortening
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/3 cups packed light brown sugar
2/3 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (not Instant or 1-minute or Quick)
2 cups corn flakes
1 1/4 cups (3.5 oz.) flaked sweetened coconuts
10 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips

Note: When I made these at Christmas time, I made them so that Mark could eat them and used margarine in place of the butter and shortening. When I bake things for people who can and will eat butter, I always use unsalted butter. And even though I have not made this recipe with butter, I am pretty confident that it would work without any problems.

Second Note: If you are using butter, you can use unsalted butter and than add the salt OR just use salted butter.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease baking sheets or use parchment paper to line baking sheets.

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; set aside.

With a standing mixer, beat the butter until lightened. Add the brown sugar and sugar and beat until fluffy and smooth. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until evenly incorporated. Beat or stir in the flour mixture until evenly incorporated.

Using the standing mixer, mix in the oats and the shredded coconut.

By hand, mix in the corn flakes and the chocolate chips.

Note about Chocolate Chips: First you can use semi-sweet or milk chocolate chips, for this recipe. Milk chocolate is sweeter, of course. Also, I have written the recipe for using only 10 oz. of chips. Most chips are sold in 12 oz. bags, you can use the whole bag, but you will have more chips than dough, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I think I use a 1 TBS. cookie scoop to form the cookies. Err on the side of making them too small, as they do take a long time to bake. Bake for 12 minutes. Will probably be more like 15 to 17 minutes ...just until the centers are beginning to firm up; don't over bake. My trick is to take the cookies out of the oven when they have 'cracked' but the cookie underneath looks moist and underdone and than let them cool on the hot cookie sheet for at least 2 minutes. The cookies finish baking on the sheet.

Enjoy.