Pumpkin Chocolate-Chip Breakfast Cookies

These cookies are a morning treat: plump, rich in color, redolent with oats, and filled with exciting nuggets of chocolate, ginger, and walnut. You'll enjoy them, but you won't experience a sugar crash and burn after eating. Think of them as craggy condensed muffins.

makes about two dozen cookies

Ingredients

2 sticks butter, softened (one cup)
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 can pumpkin
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 dash whiskey or rum
2 cups flour
2 cups oats
showering of ground flax
4 tsp baking powder
few hearty shakes of cinnamon
dash of ginger
dash of salt
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp milk or almond milk
whopping shake of dark chocolate chunks
1/2 cup candied ginger, diced
whopping shake of walnut pieces

Process

Preheat the oven to 350. Line a few baking pans with parchment paper.

Combine butter and sugars. Whisk until they form one silken ball, or mush together with your hands like I do.

Add the pumpkin, eggs, vanilla, and whiskey or rum. Inhale--yum. Don't forget to give the chef a tipple.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, oats, flax, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, and salt.

Gingerly (har!) mix dry and wet together.

In a separate dish, stir the baking soda into the milk. Add to the batter.

Toss in the chocolate chunks, ginger, and walnut pieces. Mix with your bare hands.

Put the bowl in the refrigerator for half an hour or so to firm up the batter.

Using a cookie scoop, an ice-cream scoop, or your hands, form ping-pong ball-sized rounds of batter and plop them on the cookie sheets.

Bake for 8-10 minutes. The cookies will look slightly underdone and liquidy in the centers, but they'll slide around the baking sheet intact when prodded with a spatula. My oven is built such that it take only about 6 minutes for the cookies to bake, but I think it's a freak oven.

If you overbake these, they'll still be soft and delectable because of the pumpkin content.

Notes

• These would be great with raisins, cranberries, or dried cherries.
• You don't really need three kinds of sugars. I used all three because I don't like just relying on white sugar, but any kind will do.
• Oat flour instead of oats would give you a smooth texture with just as much fiber.
• Perfect with a cup of black tea. I enjoyed some with Palais des Thés' Margaret Hope.

Verdict

5 stars. Wholesome and decadent: Tipsy Crumpet heaven!