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Chocolate Ranger Cookies are a delicious, chewy-crunchy cookie loaded with chocolate, nuts and cereal.
A few times each year, my husband Jack and I do a kitchen cabinet and freezer clean-out. We cook and bake with a little bit of this and that – leftover, partial packages of ingredients that we’ve bought for other recipes, or food that we’ve bought in bulk and frozen.
The New Year is a perfect time to do a clean-out. I love starting the year with a clean and organized house – including our kitchen! Today’s Chocolate Ranger Cookies were a delicious “result” from this year’s kitchen purge.
As you can tell by the name, our Chocolate Ranger Cookies is a chocolate version of the classic Ranger Cookie* – which is basically a type of ‘kitchen sink’ cookie. A simple cookie batter is loaded up with whatever you have in your kitchen cabinet – oats, nuts, cereal (typically Corn Flakes or Rice Krispies), coconut, chocolate chips…the options are endless!
We added both cocoa powder and Cocoa Krispies cereal to amp up the chocolate in our Chocolate Ranger Cookies, plus peanuts, semi-sweet chocolate chips, and shredded coconut. And – although it is a traditional addition, we decided to leave out the oats in our final recipe since it made the texture of the cookies a little too dry for our liking.
The finished Chocolate Ranger Cookies are tender and chewy with lots of texture to sink your teeth into – and perfect alongside a cold glass of milk. Enjoy!
*Depending on who you ask, Ranger Cookies are believed to have originated in the military where servicemen and women craving a sweet treat combined sugar and coffee creamer from their MRE (meals ready-to-eat) kits and heated them together to create a cookie. Others claim that the cookie originated in Texas as a version of the cowboy cookie called the Texas Ranger Cookie or The Lone Ranger Cookie. (Either way – this is one delicious cookie!)
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Chocolate Ranger Cookies
Chocolate Ranger Cookies are a delicious, chewy-crunchy cookie loaded with chocolate, nuts and cereal.
Ingredients
1 1/4 cups vegetable shortening (don’t use butter)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 whole eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup whole milk
3 cups Cocoa Krispies
1 cup dry roasted unsalted peanuts
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup sweetened shredded coconut
Instructions
- Preheat oven 350 degrees F.
- In a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, place shortening, both sugars and salt and blend until creamy and smooth, at least two minutes.
- Add vanilla and eggs and blend to combine, scraping bowl as needed.
- In a separate bowl, sift flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and baking soda.
- With mixer on low, alternate flour mixture and milk until combined. Do not over mix.
- In the same bowl you had the flour in, toss the Cocoa Krispies, peanuts, chocolate chips and coconut and add to the cookie dough by using a wooden spoon and mixing by hand to combine.
- Line 5 cookie sheets with parchment paper (hint… spray a little pan spray first to make parchment stick and not slide).
- Using a one-ounce scoop, scoop out 12 per pan and using wet fingers, press each down to ¾” high.
- Bake in center of oven for 10 minutes. If baking two cookie sheets at once, rotate half way through and bake up to two more minutes.
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You may also like these other ‘kitchen sink’ cookies:
Flour Bakery’s Chunky Lola Cookies
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