Oatmeal Chippers

When you want oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips and nuts but don’t want to measure out a dozen dry ingredients, oatmeal cookie mix is the shortcut. Add eggs, milk, vanilla, chips, and chopped nuts to the mix, stir, and drop by teaspoonfuls onto a baking sheet.

The milk in this recipe makes the cookies slightly softer and chewier than a standard drop cookie. Two teaspoons of vanilla is generous, but oatmeal cookies can handle it. The vanilla rounds out the chocolate and keeps the oat flavor from tasting flat.

Spacing the dough 2 inches apart is a must. These spread as they bake, and crowded cookies merge into one big oatmeal slab.

Pro Tips

• Beat the eggs before adding them to the mix. Pre-beaten eggs incorporate more evenly and prevent pockets of egg white in the finished cookies.
• Use a consistent teaspoon-sized scoop for uniform cookies that bake at the same rate. Mismatched sizes mean some burn while others stay underdone.
• Pull them at 12 minutes for chewier cookies, 15 for crispier ones. They firm up as they cool, so they’ll look slightly underdone when you take them out.

Variations

• Swap chocolate chips for butterscotch chips or peanut butter chips for a different flavor.
• Use pecans or walnuts for the chopped nuts, or try toasted almonds for a more delicate crunch.
• Add ½ cup of dried cranberries or raisins along with the chocolate chips for a fruit-nut version.