Texas Governor’s Mansion Cowboy Cookies

My daughter called a few nights ago looking for a Caramel Rice Krispy Treat recipe that I used to make when she was a little girl.  Luckily I had typed it up years ago and it was in my cookie notebook.  After we hung up I continued to look through the notebook and found some favorite cookie recipes that I have not made for a long time and quite a few recipes that I have never made.

You know, those recipes that sounded really good and I was keeping them safely stored to try for ‘later this week or early next week’ or some time in the next twenty years.

One of the recipes that I found in my stash was a newspaper clipping of Texas Governor’s Mansion Cowboy Cookies.  Cowboy Cookies have been around for a long time, but this particular recipe was made famous by Laura Bush in the 2000 Family Circle Cookie Cook-off contest between her and Tipper Gore.

I am leaving politics out of this post (sensitive subject), but I’m thinking that Mrs. Bush probably had her finger on the pulse of Family Circle readers with this recipe (she won the contest). It is a loaded cookie and the extras such as pecans, chocolate chips, and coconut are interchangeable with ingredients such as other types of nuts, butterscotch chips, raisins, dried cranberries, shredded carrots, etc. The only substitution that I made was that I needed to use carob chips instead of chocolate chips due to an unfortunate and very inconvenient allergy to cocoa, which is, of course, an ingredient in chocolate. Such a strange allergy; it is really annoying, especially since it only developed a couple of years ago.

Print Recipe

Texas Governor’s Mansion Cowboy Cookies

Recipe by Laura Bush

Prep Time25 minutes mins

Cook Time15 minutes mins

Servings: 3 + dozen large Texas -size cookies (see note below)

Author: Terri @ that's some good cookin'

Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 tablespoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups 3 sticks butter, at room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 cups packed light-brown sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 3 cups semisweet chocolate chips I used carob chips due to an allergy to chocolate
• 3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
• 2 cups sweetened flake coconut
• 2 cups chopped pecans 8 ounces (I used toasted pecans for a deeper pecan flavor.)

Instructions

• Heat oven to 350 F.
• In a very large bowl mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Set aside.
• In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat butter on medium speed until smooth and creamy, 1 minute. Please note: Mrs. Bush gives the instruction to make this in an 8-quart mixing bowl. I wanted to use my stand mixer for part of the process, but did have to transfer the ingredients to a large mixing bowl after I added the flour mixture.
• Gradually beat in the white and brown sugars. Continue to beat for 2 minutes.
• Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
• Add the vanilla and beat well.
• By hand, stir in the flour mixture until just combined. Transfer mixture to a very large mixing bowl.
• Stir in the chocolate chips, oats, coconut and pecans.
• For large cookies, drop 1/4 cup dough onto ungreased baking sheets, spacing 3 inches apart. Bake in 350 F oven 15-17 minutes, until edges are lightly browned.

Notes

For 6 dozen small (regular size) cookies, use 2 tablespoons dough for each cookie. Bake at 350 F for 8-10 minutes.

You may also like:

Caramel Rice Krispie Treats

Traditional Peanut butter Cookies

Butterscotch Pudding Chocolate Chip Cookies