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If you ever visit the Boston area – you really must plan a visit to the popular Flour Bakery + Café as part of your foodie itinerary. At any of the Flour locations in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, you’ll find fantastic freshly-made breakfast pastries, lunches, and desserts – including these Chunky Lola Cookies.
Chunky Lola Cookies are essentially ‘kitchen sink’ cookies – a sweet, buttery batter loaded with chunks of chocolate, nuts, oatmeal, and coconut. We found this recipe in the cookbook, Flour – Spectacular Recipes from Boston’s Flour Bakery + Café, and let me tell you – these cookies ARE indeed spectacular!
In the cookbook, you’ll also find the story behind the Chunky Lola Cookies name. The Flour bakery staff held a cookie-naming contest with their customers, and “Chunky Lola Cookies” was the name that made all of them laugh. (Sadly – when the winner claimed their prize – they left before telling anyone could ask who the mystery “Lola” is!)
Today, the Chunky Lola Cookies are one of the most popular cookies on Flour’s menu – and after one bite of these cookies, you’ll definitely understand why!
Chunky Lola Cookies are sold at Flour locations as jumbo-sized cookies, but we adapted the recipe below to yield smaller, typical-sized cookies.
Otherwise, the recipe below is true to the original in the cookbook – listing bittersweet chocolate and pecans, plus the sweetened coconut and oatmeal in the ingredients list. It’s worth mentioning that we’ve successfully swapped in semi-sweet chocolate chips for the bittersweet chocolate, and walnuts instead of pecans – and the cookies are equally delicious with those substitutions.
Enjoy! I predict these Chunky Lola Cookies are going to become a new favorite cookie!
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Flour Bakery’s Chunky Lola Cookies
Ingredients
1/2 cup (1 stick) plus 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup packed light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup rolled oats (do not use instant or quick oats)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
9 ounces bittersweet chocolate (ideally 62 to 70 percent cacao), chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
1 1/4 cups pecan halves, dry toasted in a pan, then chopped
1 cup sweetened shredded coconut
Instructions
In the bowl of stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and both sugars on medium speed until very light and fluffy (about 5 minutes), stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary.
Add eggs and vanilla and mix again on medium speed for 2 to 3 minutes, until eggs are fully blended into the butter and sugar mixture.
In a medium bowl, combine flour, oats, baking soda and salt. Add chopped chocolate, pecans, and coconut to the flour mixture and toss to coat.
On low speed, slowly add the flour mixture to the mixing bowl with the butter mixture. Mix until flour and other ingredients are even throughout. Remove bowl from mixer and use a rubber spatula to stir under the cookie batter – making sure that there are no unmixed ingredients underneath. (If there is, use the spatula to mix into the rest of the batter.)
Scape the dough into an airtight container and chill in the refrigerator overnight (or for up to 1 week) before baking.
When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Position the rack in the center of your oven.
Using a medium (#40) scoop*, place balls of dough onto a baking sheet about 2 inches apart. Press with your fingers slightly to flatten the tops of the balls of dough.
Bake for 9-11 minutes, or until the cookies are golden brown on the edges and slightly soft in the center. Cool on the baking sheet until firm enough to remove with a spatula to a wire rack. Cool completely on a wire rack.
Baked cookies may be stored for up to 2 days in an airtight container.
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Notes
*If you’d like to make the jumbo-sized cookies as they do at Flour, use a ¼ cup measuring cup to form large balls of dough. Space about 2-3 inches apart on the baking sheet. Flatten each ball slightly with the palm of your band. Bake for 20 to 22 minutes, or until golden brown on the edges and slightly soft in the center. Allow to cool on the baking sheet for 15 to 20 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. The yield will be 18 jumbo-sized cookies.
The cookie dough needs to chill before baking. (See step 5 below.) Plan your time accordingly.
I have a gluten allergy, so I made these by substituting Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 for the flour. They came out perfectly! (I didn’t have pecans, so I toasted and chopped some walnuts instead — cookie was just as delicious.) Thank you for the recipe!
You’re welcome Galen – glad to know you can make that swap. Thanks for sharing!
Like another reviewer mine came out flat and raw too even after baking 15 mins. Oven is accurate; not sure what is wrong.
I’m not sure either Jessie – I just reconfirmed that all of the measurements/ingredients in our recipe match the original Flour Bakery recipe. Sorry you were disappointed.
Hi Martha,
Thank you for the Chunkie Loola Cookies recipe. I have tried them twice but it came out flat n a bit raw in the middle while the outers were already crispy. I have put the dough in the fridge overnight. I made half the recipe. I wonder if the mixing time needs to be reduce with less recipe?
Appreciate your reply 🙂
Hi Cela – I’m not sure – we’ve only made this recipe several times as written and they come out as shown in our photos.
Here’s an article with some ideas about why cookies come out too flat: https://www.tasteofhome.com/article/why-are-my-cookies-flat/
I know in the past, our old oven ran a little hotter than the set temperature and our cookies often spread out on the cookie sheets. You could try adjusting your oven temperature down a bit?
Hope this helps!
Hi, do you think I need to use a mixer for this recipe? I don’t have one and was wondering if there is an alternative? Or would this drastically change the taste? Thanks!
Hi Tiffany – It won’t change the taste necessarily, but it could change the texture. The very first mixing step will be a lot easier with a mixer…without it, you’ll really want to spend some time mixing it by hand to get the butter and sugars as fluffy as possible. (Definitely let the butter soften before attempting to mix it.) Hope that helps!
I adore everything about this recipe – my new favorite cookie 🍪
Thanks Megan! So glad you liked the recipe!
I don’t care for either pecans or walnuts.
Will I mess up the recipe if I just omit the nuts altogether?
Or could I put corn flakes instead of the nuts?\
Thank you and can’t wait to make these tonight! 🙂
Hi Pris – Sorry for the delay in responding! (We were on vacation and our hotel wifi wasn’t working so I couldn’t log in to respond.) You may have already made these cookies – but if not, feel free to leave the nuts out. (And you could try putting a little bit of corn flakes into the batter….) Hope you enjoy(ed) the cookies!
These cookies were scrumptious.