Chocolate, Oat, and Nut Cookies

Some families bond over sports. Others, the outdoors. Some share values. Mine? I bonded with my mother and sister over about a bajillion batches of cookies.

I was brought up under the doctrine that anything could be cured—boredom, the sniffles, crankiness—through the cathartic creation of a batch of cookies. (Feeling sad? Let’s talk about it while we whip up some oatmeal raisins.) Admittedly, to this day, I bake cookies for emotional reasons. Upon moving out and starting a life of my own, baking sessions became affordable therapy (feel that breakup fade away as the butter is whipped into submission and fluffy sweetness). I gave love, thanks, appreciation, and I’m sorrys wrapped into a basket of crispy-on-the-outside-and-soft-in-the-middle confections. It was my thing.

Alas, a girl can’t eat as many cookies as her 5-year-old (or 20-year-old) self once could. Since discovering I’m lactose intolerant, and my sister deciding to forgo gluten, the demand for my traditional treats trickled off. The past few years have a been an ongoing experiment in trying to recreate the inherent magic in my mom’s original confections—sans stomach ache and snug jeans.

With work off this Friday (gotta love those teacher-in-service days), and a visit to my sister for her birthday in store, I decided it was a ripe opportunity for experimentation (just the push I needed to get out of my banana bread and granola rut). These chocolaty oatmeal wonders, with their soft chocolate chunks, nutty bite, and buttery-without-the-butter dough answer an old-fashioned cookie craving. True, they’re hardly sugar free, but, hey, cookies that taste this good sans butter and white flour are a birthday-worthy win in my book. Happy birthday, Sis!

No-Bake Chocolate Oat Bars

Now officially working three jobs, my baking time has sadly dwindled into a few remaining evening and weekend hours. (You know, the ones that are also occupied with walking the dog, preparing meals, fitting in exercise, time with friends and family, and catching up on my reality TV marathons). Luckily, summer days are longer and, hey, I’m getting paid to teach elementary school kids—that thing I’m trying to do as a career (until I open my own bake shop).

Like many of my recipes, this was inspired by one that my mom often made in the warm summer months for my sister and I. It doesn’t require an oven—just the melting together of cocoa, sugar, and (in my case) coconut butter on the stove before stirring in a few other basic ingredients. From what I can gather, no-bake cookies are a Midwest thing, usually with peanut butter and butter, and dropped in dollops onto cookie sheets to harden. Besides the obvious axing of the butter, I opted for almond butter over peanut (it’s just what I had on hand) and poured it all into a square baking dish, resulting in even-easier-to-make bars. The first time I made them they lacked a little something, so I added chopped nuts for more texture and kick of flavor. Go ahead, try them!

Dairy-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies...With a Twist

My understanding of the power in a homemade cookie dawned on me when I was eight.

My Ohio-born mother, whose attitude toward the California natural-food obsession remains at best respectfully disinclined, allowed my younger sister and I to stay home from school with minor colds. After resting on our old couch for a few hours, sniffly and bored, she coaxed us into the kitchen, placed each of us on stepping stools and began a batch of our favorite-chocolate chip, oatmeal, and rice crispy-cookies. It was our cure-all, and one that she continues to prescribe to the kids in her life today.

As my sister and I grew up, young neighbors started knocking on the door, begging to come over and bake with my mom. Today she holds her two-year-old nephew on her hip as she takes out little spoonfuls of dough for him to taste and gives him handfuls of chips to toss into the bowl.

Respected chefs often, nearly entirely, omit the cookie from their menus. Instead, diners are forced to navigate dessert options like “peerless organic coffee and mocha soufflé” (at San Francisco’s Carnelian Room) and “coconut vacherin with passion fruit ice cream and kiwi sherbet” (at Berkeley’s Chez Panisse). No comfy cookies there.

Even today, two decades later, my mom and I can barely get through a weekend together without devising some excuse to bake. The process is inherently uniting and restorative: White, powdery flour. Coarse sugar. Creamy butter. Stir. Eggs and vanilla. Stir. Flour and baking soda and salt. Stir. Chocolate. Stir. Then the baker digs in, pulls pieces out of the moist dough, and forms them into balls. Each mound is handled and shaped by her two hands. Each ball’s very form, whether big or small, lopsided or lacking in chips, is entirely her own. Or, in our case, our own.

Today most of my homemade cookies are neatly stacked, wrapped in parchment paper and carefully placed into tins, in which they’re brought over to a friend’s apartment, given away in a giant bundle, or even shipped around the world. (Alas, a girl can only eat so many cookies.) The moist-in-the-middle and just crispy enough to require a bit of a bite around the outside treats are now my gifts. Handed over in exchange for watching someone else enjoy them as much as I do, as a thank you, a nice-to-meet-you, an I’m sorry, or a just-because.

They’re something so simple, a cookie--the word has a straightforward idea attached to it--and they’re more. They’re pretty little things that have a history, accumulated thought, feelings and affection.
And you can’t find that in any flourless dark chocolate, whipped hazelnut crème fraiche torte.

This is my mother's not-so-secret recipe. They're chocolate chip, they're oatmeal, and they have rice crispies in them (sounds strange, but trust it)--all together they leave people asking how on earth you made something so magical. And guess what? They're just as good dairy free.