Healthy Cowboy Cookies

This recipe for Healthy Cowboy Cookies is the perfect treat. These holiday cookies have chocolate, oats, nuts, cranberries, coconut, and a splash of rum! Each chewy bite will melt in your mouth!

This recipe for Healthy Cowboy Cookies is a riff on Laura Bush’s popular recipe for Cowboy Cookies (also known as Laura Bush’s Texas Governor’s Mansion Cookies).  In a nutshell, in 2000, there was a political bake-off for the candidates’ wives during a presidential campaign.  Laura’s cookies won.  Almost 20 years later we are still enjoying this ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ favorite.  Here we modify Laura’s recipe by switching to whole wheat pastry flour, pairing down on both sugars, swapping some butter for coconut oil, switching up the nuts, and adding fun fall cranberries.

These are chocolate chip cookies on flavor overdrive.    I make them smaller as they are very filling!  Don’t be surprised if you hear this when your family and friends take their first bite: “I don’t know what’s in here but it’s good!”  Here’s a sneak peek at the ingredients – chocolate, oats, nuts, cranberries/cherries, a touch of coconut, and a splash of rum, why?  holidays 🙂   It’s time to kick up ‘fall cozy’. 

Here is a snapshot of the ingredients I use in my version of cowboy cookies:

not pictured, white sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt

I love cinnamon in cookies, especially in chocolate chip cookies so you’ll definitely find some on the ingredients list.  Salty sweet is another favorite so we pump up the salt.  If you love oatmeal and cinnamon in cookies but want to keep it a little simpler, another family favorite is Ava’s Brown Sugar Cinnamon Oatmeal Cookies.

Cowboy cookies are great to take to a friend’s house.  They make for a good conversation starter because only the Lord knows what’s in ’em!  I took a batch to my twin nieces house over the weekend.  It’s was their 9th birthday.  We played a fun game of guess what the cookies are made of?  The cuties had fun and made guesses with each bite.  Their first guess was cinnamon…not bad!

We’re not going to be winning any beauty contests with these cookies – that’s why I took pictures of them right in the Tupperware.  Close your eyes and take a bite and you will enter crunchy, chewy, chocolatey, sweetly spiced cookie goodness.  

Why switch to Whole Wheat Pastry Flour?

• Wheat flours have more nutritional benefits than white
• Whole wheat pastry flour has less of a strong wheaty flavor than other straight whole wheat flours
• More finely ground than straight whole wheat flour – results in softer, less dense cookies

What toppings go into Healthy Cowboy Cookies?

• chocolate chips!  (semi-sweet)
• coconut
• dried fruit (cranberries or cherries)
• nuts

The recipe makes quite a big batch.  I recommend either making a 1/2 batch or making the full recipe and saving half to bake later.  

Freezing them helps with portion control.  They also are fun to send to a friend’s house. 

Tips on Saving and Freezing the Cookie Dough

• Separate the leftover dough into two or three sections and roll into long logs – this will make for faster and easier defrosting when you are ready to bake
• Wrap it in plastic wrap covering all of the dough and place the wrapped dough logs into a freezer bag
• Add the date to the freezer bag – the cookie dough will last for up to 2 months although I recommend using it for best results within two to three weeks
• When ready to use, defrost most of the way, cut logs into slices about 1 inch in diameter, shape cookies, and bake

Tonight Bob took some cookie dough to a guys draft party.  You can send the dough off with kids and teens and make every gathering a little more interactive.

Note, it’s easy to pump up the flair on these cookies and turn them into “Boozy Cowboy Cookies”.  Another option is to soak some yellow raisins in rum and mix in easy rum raisins. 

[mv_create key=”104″ title=”Healthy Cowboy Cookies” type=”recipe”]If you like this recipe, please give it a star rating!  I know I’m a sucker for a chunky, yummy loaded cookie.  If you are too, you’ll also love Gluten-free Dark Chocolate Monster Cookies.

Big hugs,

Bita