Of excess, of gratuity

Gah! I'm falling off the blogging bandwagon. It is SO hard to keep up when I'm not doing it every day. Anyway, I'm here to bring you a cookie recipe from another professed non-baker. That always makes me pay attention.

When it comes to design, I like things either super neutral or the complete opposite: super colorful, all in one piece. I guess you could say both styles match with everything. Same goes with food. I usually like recipes that have few ingredients, where each speaks for itself. I'm not a huge fan of excess, of gratuity. But because I love paradox, I love these cookies, which have what might seem like a lot of mix-ins. Lots of ingredients, lots of things talking at once. And I love it. I hope you will, too.

Gaia Cookies
from Shauna Niequist's Bread and Wine

I made these with mostly dates for the dried fruit portion and loved it. I tried so hard to follow the recipe as-is the first time (so hard for a cook-not-baker), but next time I would increase both the chocolate and the nuts by maybe a 1/4 to 1/2 each. The amount of butter/sugar/flour in the recipe can handle it, I believe.

2 sticks butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
2 T vanilla (I don't know if this is a typo, but I made it as is and it was not a problem)
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cup oats
1 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup walnuts, chopped
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup chopped dates, raisins, dried cherries, or cranberries, or any combination

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream together butter and brown sugar. Add eggs and vanilla and mix well.

Mix together dry ingredients through salt, then add to creamed butter/sugar mixture. Stir in the mix-ins.

Briefly chill dough before rolling into balls (or roll the balls and chill the cookie sheet, if you have room in your fridge). Bake for 15 to 17 minutes, until golden. I like to go on the longer side so it can be crispy despite already being chewy from the ingredients (especially if you use dates, as I did).