Honey Graham Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

It’s fun to experiment a little with cookie recipes, throwing in different ingredients to see if you can improve on a regular chocolate chip cookie with some raisins, peanuts, coconut, white chocolate, cinnamon, cardamom, vanilla or any number of other fruits, nuts, spices, etc. The options are endless. And, to that end, I decided to mix some graham crackers, along with chocolate chips, into a regular batch of oatmeal cookie dough and incorporate a completely different type of cookie into the mix.

The result was a batch of delicious cookies with a long name, that are much easier to make than they might sound at first. All you really need to do is lightly crush up some graham crackers before you start making the dough, and stir them in as you would with any other ingredient. If you’re going to use an electric mixer, you don’t even need to break the crackers up much, as the mixer, even on a low speed, will do the work for you. In the finished batch of cookies you get a good butter and oatmeal flavor, as well as a great honey note from the grahams.

If you have them, I would really recommend using Honey Grahams (the cereal) because they’re already broken up and they have an even more pronounced flavor of honey and graham than the crackers themselves have! The graham crackers and the cereal become slightly chewy during baking, mostly because they’re exposed to the liquids in the dough. This hint of chewiness that shows up in the finished cookie – which is also slightly chewy in a buttery, oatmeal-cookie way – seems to emphasize the honey flavor of the grahams well.

Honey Graham Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
1 large egg
3 tbsp buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3 cups quick cooking oatmeal
1 cup honey graham crackers/honey grahams cereal, lightly crushed
2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugars. Beat in egg, buttermilk and vanilla extract, mixing until smooth.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt. Blend into butter mixture.
Working with a mixer on low speed or by hand, stir in 3 cups quick-cooking oatmeal (not instant) and 1 cup honey grahams. Stir in chocolate chips last and mix only enough to evenly distribute.
Divide dough into 1-inch balls on prepared baking sheet.
Bake for 12-14 minutes, until edges are lightly browned. Let cool on the baking sheet for 2 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.
Store in an airtight container.

Makes about 4 1/2 dozen.