The $250 Cookie Recipe

By Barbara Whitaker

The $250 Cookie Recipe
Peter DaSilva for The New York Times
Total Time
45 minutes
Rating
4(7,900)
Comments
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Almost everybody has heard the one about the woman lunching at the Neiman Marcus Cafe in Dallas, who enjoyed the chocolate chip cookies so much that she asked for the recipe. For "only two-fifty," the waitress said, it was hers. But when the credit card bill arrived, the woman found the total near $300. Turns out the recipe cost $250, the story goes. In 1997, after years of enduring the myth, Neiman Marcus came up with a recipe – and gave it out for free. It's a delicious variation on chocolate chip cookies, using ground oatmeal, nuts and adding extra chocolate with a grated Hershey bar (you can use any brand you love).

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Ingredients

Yield:About 55 cookies
  • 1cup butter
  • 1cup dark brown sugar, packed
  • 1cup granulated sugar
  • 2eggs
  • 1teaspoon vanilla
  • 2½cups oatmeal
  • 2cups flour
  • ½teaspoon salt
  • 1teaspoon baking soda
  • 1teaspoon baking powder
  • 12ounces chocolate chips
  • 14-ounce milk chocolate bar
  • 1½cups chopped nuts
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (55 servings)

156 calories; 8 grams fat; 4 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 2 grams monounsaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 20 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram dietary fiber; 13 grams sugars; 2 grams protein; 61 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Heat oven to 375 degrees.

  2. Step 2

    Cream together butter and both sugars. Stir in eggs and vanilla.

  3. Step 3

    Finely grind oatmeal in a blender or food processor. Combine the oatmeal, flour, salt, baking powder and soda in a medium bowl, and slowly add it to the wet ingredients. Beat just until combined. Grate chocolate bar using a microplane grater and add it, along with chocolate chips and nuts to the batter. Mix just to combine.

  4. Step 4

    Drop by heaping tablespoonfuls, 2 inches apart, on a greased cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes.

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Ratings

4 out of 5
7,900 user ratings
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Comments

ellen

you can't bake with steel cut! only rolled oats, any brand. Not instant. :-)

Robert Chamut

This is similar to my late wife's recipe for chocolate chip cookies except for the chocolate. She used to send me to buy a 5 kg. bar of Callebaut(sp?) chocolate, make me chop up the bar with a cleaver and use the result as her chips. Amazing cookies with that superb chocolate.

murphy

If you let it rest 2 hrs to over night, it can improve texture

Martha

I’ve had this one saved in my “recipe box” for quite some time—but since my husband is not a fan of chocolate chips, I hadn’t made it. I recently realized I had a few bars of fabulous chocolate we bought in Paris this past January that hadn’t been used yet, so I thought, “he’ll like those”! I chopped the bars into chocolate chunks instead of using chocolate chips, and grated 4 oz of dark chocolate instead of what the recipe calls for. They were fantastic! My husband loved them, and my father (who is a fabulous baker) loved them and asked for me to share the recipe. I will definitely make this again using the changes with the chocolate.

Susan

Love the addition of oatmeal and nuts (pecans for me). Do not double the recipe if making in a KitchenAid mixer: the vol. is too much to handle.

Genevieve

I was a little confused about the "oatmeal" as an ingredient. Is the intent that we pre-cook the oatmeal, or just add oats? I used uncooked rolled oats, ground moderately finely, and the cookies turned out well.

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