Karen Plotkin, my mom and a 53-year-old who lives in Austin, was taught by her grandmother “Meem,” that the worst thing anyone could do was bring her a “store-bought dessert.” Whenever she wanted cookies she would make cookies with her mother. For Plotkin, it became not only a treat but a bonding experience with her mother and grandmother. Today she gets to pass the recipe down to her daughters and watch them make the cookies with their grandmother, just like she did. The cookies were a feeling of comfort as her family moved all over the country due to her father being in the Air Force. Going from one Air Force base to another, making the cookies allowed her to feel connected to her roots, even when she was far away. When she got to college, she started making cowboy cookies for her friends and would experiment with the recipe to switch out ingredients that she didn’t have. The recipe is in her brown cookbook, which has become the place where important family recipes are written down. Now, whenever she wants to make the cookies with her girls, she sends one of them to grab the brown cookbook and follow the simple recipe that she has made for so long. Before my mom had my sister and me, the cookies were a source of comfort for my dad’s father, who had cancer and unfortunately passed before I was born. Now, whenever we make the cookies, my dad is always the first one to taste them, hot out of the oven.

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What is the family history with the cowboy cookies? Why are they so important?

So your great-grandmother's sister found the recipe in the Memphis newspaper, and they became a family tradition, so we never had store-bought cookies. So both my grandmother and my mother would always make homemade cookies. I grew up with them as an important part of whenever we wanted a cookie, we would make these. They're a very simple recipe, with not a lot of bells and whistles on it. And then as we found people who needed something for comfort, we would make the cookies for them. So that started with Ronnie when he was going through chemo and radiation, he loved the cookies. So I would make a batch every couple of days and take them over to his house. 

 

How long have you been making cookies on your own or how long has Mimi been making them? 

So, Mimi's been making them probably since she was a teenager. So, and she is 86 so I would say she's been doing it for 70 years, and I started making these cookies in college. And please, you do the math. Not me. I finished college in ‘93 I don't like to think about how long ago that was.

 

How have the cookies changed over time?

We've tried to keep them pretty consistent. So it's a very old-school and simple recipe, particularly because it has Crisco and not butter. I've tried various versions of them, so when I was in college and I didn't have vanilla, I would use Jack Daniels or something for them, which doesn't work well, but we really haven't evolved the recipe. But if you look at cowboy cookies in Texas, they mean a lot of different things. They typically have nuts in them and coconut and cinnamon, and they're almost like you throw the kitchen sink in. But rather than evolve these, we've tried to keep them very simple and very true to the original recipe.

 

You said something about Meem saying, “The worst thing you could do is bring a ‘bought cake’ or something bought.” What was the story behind that?

Well, it was a show of effort. So first of all, I think my Meem, as well as Mimi, were ahead of their time in not having a lot of processed foods. That's where the bought cake really came into it, right? The bought cookies were processed, and ours were homemade. And then, so whenever I wanted a cookie, my friends, their parents, would have Oreos and things like that. We never had that, if we wanted cookies, or if I wanted cookies, we would make some which kind of slowed down your desire for a cookie, because it took a long time.

 

How often would you say you made the cookies growing up? 

They were kind of special occasions, so maybe, like, once every two or three months. Wow, I’m making my childhood sound kind of sad that I didn't have cookies.

 

Do you have any favorite memories with these cookies?

Honestly, my favorite memory with them is how much Ronnie enjoyed them when he was really sick and it was kind of getting toward the end, I think it brought him pleasure and brought him joy to have something sweet and homemade, and they were so different than the cookies that Nanny made. So Nanny made amazing cookies, but they were very buttery, chocolate chip and toffee cookies and these were extremely different. 

 

What has making these cookies taught you about cooking or baking?

The choice of the fat that you use in the cookie is really important. Butter-based cookies kind of spread out more, and using Crisco creates a really different profile to the cookie because it puffs up a lot more.

 

Is there a deeper meaning behind these cookies?

There is no deeper meaning. Other than the connection with my mother and grandmother. Whenever we pull it out, we pull out the recipe and all the ingredients, I think of Great Meem. 

 

How is this different from Meem’s other cookie recipes, like, where did the sugar cookie recipe come from?

So I'm not sure where she got the sugar cookie recipe. And it's interesting because we have multiple versions of the sugar cookie recipe and do multiple different things. There's one with two cups of flour, one with three cups of flour, so one with all butter, one with half butter, and one with half margarine. I think she played with that one a lot more, but I don't think she deviated much from the cowboy cookie recipe. Most of her recipes were not really recipes, but you just put things in a bowl, and you'll know it, but this cowboy cookie recipe was very specific. One of my favorite things she made was hot water cornbread and puffs, which were essentially donuts, and there was nothing written down. I would watch her do it, and she would say, ‘Well, you know, you just stir it, and you'll know when it feels right.’ And I never picked up on that and never picked up on what the feel was, where these cookies, I think, are an important connection because it's actually written down precisely what you do instead of hey, you'll just feel it, you'll just know. 

 

Recipe

 

1 cup Crisco

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

1 ½ cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 ¼ cup Quaker oatmeal

6 ounces  (half a bag) mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes 

 

Instructions

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

In a large bowl, add Crisco and sugar and mix together - use a wooden spoon to combine everything 

Add brown sugar 

Crack two eggs directly into the bowl and mix with the vanilla extract

In a sifter, add the flour, baking soda and salt

Sift in the flour and mix until all fully combined

Add in the oatmeal

Stir in the chocolate chips

Use a small spoon to form a ball of cookie dough and place on a baking sheet to bake

Bake for 12 minutes at 350 degrees 

Let cool before serving