The $250 Cookie Recipe

Name: The $250 Cookie Recipe
Total time: 45 min
Yield: About 55 cookies
Ingredients: 1 cup butter; 1 cup dark brown sugar, packed; 1 cup granulated sugar; 2 eggs; 1 teaspoon vanilla; 2 1/2 cups oatmeal; 2 cups flour; 1/2 teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 teaspoon baking powder; 12 ounces chocolate chips; 1 4-ounce milk chocolate bar; 1 1/2 cups chopped nuts

By Barbara Whitaker

Total Time: 45 minutes
Rating: 4(8,037)
Comments: Read comments

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

Preparation

Step 1
Heat oven to 375 degrees.
Step 2
Cream together butter and both sugars. Stir in eggs and vanilla.
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.
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

8,037 user ratings

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Comments

ellen8 years ago

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

Robert Chamut8 years ago

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.

murphy8 years ago

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

Ali1 week ago

I’m honestly not sure what went wrong. These taste great, look a mess, and were awful to make. I was going off of the recipe in the NYT Cookies book by Vaughn Vreeland, which is slightly different than this by many measurements, and has a BIG typo regarding the grated chocolate (1 14oz bar vs 1 4 oz bar lol). I made according to the book but using these measurements for add ins. A mess! The dough was somehow dry AND sticky and wouldn’t take all the dry ingredients, let alone the add ins. It was SUPER tough to mix, both by mixer and hand! I tried both given the very obvious issues early on. Probably over mixed. Cookies taste great but are lumpy and ugly to look at. I had to have messed up somewhere for them to be so bad, but I followed it exactly (except the typo) so who knows.

Julie c1 week ago

Are these basically Cowboy cookies without the cinnamon? Either way, and either recipe--fantastic.

Sara Lynn1 week ago

Do these cookies come out chewy? I must have a chewy cookie?

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