Most cookie recipes only include a few mix-ins at a time. Chocolate chips and walnuts. Raisins and pecans. White chocolate and apricot. These Giant Kitchen Sink Cookies are not that type of cookie. These cookies are loaded with – as the name suggests – everything but the kitchen sink! The recipe for these buttery, chewy cookies includes oatmeal, dark chocolate chunks, shredded coconut and more – making them the perfect recipe for those times when you want to use up whatever is taking up extra space in your pantry.
Not only are they packed with goodies, these Giant Kitchen Sink Cookies really live up to the “giant” title in their name. Each one is made with 3/4 cup of cookie dough, yielding a cookie that is about 6-inches across and big enough to put most “bakery-style” cookies out there to shame. You can, of course, make these as a more traditionally sized cookie by reducing the amount of dough used for each one and reducing the baking time. Reducing the size will produce more cookies, but you might not get all of the goodies in each if you don’t go for the full size treats.
When you read through the recipe, you’ll notice that the cherries, cranberries and pecans aren’t chopped, which they often are in cookie doughs. This is because you want the mix-ins to match the huge scale of these cookies and stand out a bit! That means that coarsely chopped chocolate chunks are an even better choice than chocolate chips in these big cookies. If you want to play around with the mix-ins, dried blueberries make a good alternative to dried cherries and dried peaches can be chopped up in place of the dried apricots.
The huge cookies are incredibly impressive when you bring them out, but they’re really big enough to share with a friend. If you opt to make slightly smaller cookies, you can scale back to using 1/4 cup of dough for each cookie and reduce the baking time to about 14 minutes. No matter what size you bake these cookies to be, they’ll keep well in an airtight container for a couple of days after baking. That said, I like them best when they are still very slightly warm from the oven and those chocolate chunks are a bit melty.
Giant Kitchen Sink Cookies
1 cup butter, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cups quick cooking rolled oats
1 cup shredded coconut
1/2 cup diced, dried apricots
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup dried cherries
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 cup dark chocolate chunks or chips
1 cup toasted pecans
Preheat oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugars until light and creamy, about 1 minute. Beat in eggs one at a time, followed by vanilla extract.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder and oatmeal. Stir dry ingredients into butter mixture until no streaks of flour remain. Stir in coconut, dried apricots, raisins, dried cherries, dried cranberries, dark chocolate and toasted pecans until evenly distributed.
Scoop up 3/4 cup of dough into large balls. Arrange on baking sheet, leaving at least 5 inches between cookies. Gently flatten the balls using the palm of your hand or a spatula until they are approximately 4-inches in diameter.
Bake for 18-20 minutes, until cookies are golden brown around the edges and set in the center. Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5-6 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Makes 8 giant cookies.
What do you think?