The $250 Cookie Recipe

By Barbara Whitaker

Published July 1, 1997

  • Peter DaSilva for The New York Times
Media 1 of 1
Total Time
45 minutes
Rating
4(8,105)
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

  • 1 cup butter

  • 1 cup dark brown sugar, packed

  • 1 cup granulated sugar

  • 2 eggs

  • 1 teaspoon vanilla

  • 2 ½ cups oatmeal

  • 2 cups flour

  • ½ teaspoon salt

  • 1 teaspoon baking soda

  • 1 teaspoon baking powder

  • 12 ounces chocolate chips

  • 1 4-ounce milk chocolate bar

  • 1 ½ cups chopped nuts

Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving

20 grams carbs; 16 milligrams cholesterol; 156 calories; 2 grams monounsaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 4 grams saturated fat; 8 grams fat; 1 gram fiber; 61 milligrams sodium; 2 grams protein; 13 grams sugar

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
8,105 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

E from PDX

Glad I checked on the app, the NYT "Cookies" cookbook says to use a 14 ounce chocolate bar rather than 1 4-oz bar which is a lot more reasonable to me...

Seattlecook

Classic, perfect. Walnuts, pecans, a mixture of both - all great. I wonder if there might be merit to toasting the nuts in advance. I usually get about 3 dozen out of the batch, freezing whatever I don’t make for day of (and squishing round doughballs into more flattish rounds). Easy to cook straight from the freezer, but my family likes to pilfer and devour the frozen discs).

Rebecca D

Made 1/2 recipe, worked perfectly! 27 cookies. I chill the dough for 1 hour before baking.

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