Pioneer woman everything cookies with pretzels and potato chips

Q: What is Ree Drummonds favorite cookie?

Simple, delicious, jammy—theres so much to love about a traditional thumbprint cookie. By the way, this one only needs 30 minutes of prep time. These sugar cookies are not only Rees favorite, but yours, too! The recipe was passed down to Ree from a member of her church, and its been widely beloved by all ever since.

Q: What makes a cookie super chewy?

Well, the long and short answer to chewy cookies is its all about the moisture content. Cookies that are dense and chewy incorporate more moisture into the batter. This can be achieved by making substitutions with ingredients, or even just changing the way you incorporate certain ingredients.

Combine flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels, potato chips, pretzel pieces and peanuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

Table of Contents Show

What is Ree Drummonds favorite cookie?
What makes a cookie soft and chewy or crispy?
What makes cookies fluffy vs flat?
What makes a cookie super chewy?

As I lamented on Twitter yesterday afternoon, I was having trouble deciding whether to make a soup, a casserole, or a main dish salad for dinner. I kept going back and forth and I just couldn’t make up my mind.

So I just made cookies instead.

These are generally called Monster Cookies, but could also be called “Everything Cookies” since they have everything in them…but I already have a version of Everything Cookies on my site and Hyacinth would get mad at me.

Make these your own, bumping up quantities of whatever ingredients float your boat: M&M’s, nuts, chocolate chips—just adjust as you feel led. Rather than add peanut butter to the dough as most Monster Cookie recipes do, I add peanut butter chips. I like to keep the oatmeal cookie flavor as the base.

And eat ’em with a tall glass of cold milk. There’s nothing better in the world.

Except maybe that soup I made afterward. But that’s another recipe for another time.

Here’s what you need. Basic, yummy stuff!

Throw the butter and both sugars into a mixer. Paddle attachment is best.

You can also do it by hand if you have the upper body strength, which I absolutely do not.

I wonder if that’s due to the fact that I always use a mixer? Which came first? The mixer or the atrophy?

Mix it until it’s nice and fluffy and combined.

Crack in the eggs one at a time…

Mixing well after each addition.

Add in vanilla and mix to combine.

I love vanilla.

It makes me happy.

Now mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and kosher salt.

Dump it into the mixing bowl…

And mix it up till it’s all combined. Scrape the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula halfway through.

It’s the right thing to do.

Next, dump in the oats…

Chop up the pecans…

And dump them in, too.

Mix it just a little bit until it’s combined.

And now you can have some fun!

M&M’s…

Chocolate chips. I did a mix of semi-sweet and milk chocolate, because sometimes semi-sweet gets a little strong for me and can dominate cookies and then everything’s RUINED!

I also used peanut butter chips.

But you don’t have to.

Now you can mix it again (very gently). Check out the quantities of everything, and dump in a little more of what you might want.

I like to add the Rice Krispies at the end so they won’t get completely beaten up.

Then mix it around till combined. Done!

And that’s it, baby! Modify this dough however you’d like: chocolate chunks, bits of toffee, even bits of dried fruit.

Use a cookie scoop or tablespoon to drop helpings of dough onto the cookie sheet.

Then bake ’em till they’re golden brown. I let these get a little darker than golden, because I’m weird.

Let them cool on a wire rack.

And chow down, baby!

You’ll love ’em.

They’ll make you grin.

And jiggle. But we’ll worry about that tomorrow.

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Simple, delicious, jammy—there's so much to love about a traditional thumbprint cookie. By the way, this one only needs 30 minutes of prep time. These sugar cookies are not only Ree's favorite, but yours, too! The recipe was passed down to Ree from a member of her church, and it's been widely beloved by all ever since.

Butter contributes milk solids and water to a cookie, both of which soften it. Brown sugar contributes molasses – again, a softener. Using lower-moisture sugar (granulated) and fat (vegetable shortening), plus a longer, slower bake than normal, produces light, crunchy cookies.

What makes cookies fluffy vs flat?

Room temperature butter is just the right consistency to incorporate air when it's creamed with sugar. These trapped air pockets result in risen, fluffy cookies. If the butter is any warmer, it won't incorporate enough air and your cookies will have less rise.

Well, the long and short answer to chewy cookies is it's all about the moisture content. Cookies that are dense and chewy incorporate more moisture into the batter. This can be achieved by making substitutions with ingredients, or even just changing the way you incorporate certain ingredients.