Cooking Recipes: Cowboy Cookies

This recipe came to The Times in 2000 during the Bush-Gore presidential campaign when Family Circle magazine ran cookie recipes from each of the candidates' wives and asked readers to vote. Laura Bush's cowboy cookies, a classic chocolate chip cookie that's been beefed up with oats, pecans, coconut and cinnamon, beat Tipper Gore's ginger snaps by a mile. Here is an adaptation of that winning recipe.

Cowboy Cookies

INGREDIENTS

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 tablespoon baking soda

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

1 ½ cups (3 sticks) butter, at room temperature

1 ½ cups granulated sugar

1 ½ cups packed light-brown sugar

3 eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla

3 cups semisweet chocolate chips

3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats

2 cups usweetened flake coconut

2 cups chopped pecans (8 ounces)

PREPARATION

Step 1

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Step 2

Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in bowl.

Step 3

In a very large bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer at medium speed until smooth and creamy. Gradually beat in sugars, and combine thoroughly.

Step 4

Add eggs one at a time, beating after each. Beat in vanilla.

Step 5

Stir in flour mixture until just combined. Stir in chocolate chips, oats, coconut and pecans.

Step 6

For each cookie, drop 1/4 cup dough onto ungreased baking sheets, spacing 3 inches apart.

Step 7

Bake for 15 to 17 minutes, until edges are lightly browned; rotate sheets halfway through. Remove cookies from rack to cool.