I love me a chocolate chip cookie as much as the next girl, but my real favorite childhood cookie is a ranger cookie. My Grandma Meyer made big batches of these coconut-and-cereal-laced beauties, piled them into empty Butter-Nut coffee cans, and hauled them to the lake for mid-day, swim-starved snacking. We grandkids would inhale a stack of them as we ran back to the beach, while my grandma and aunties enjoyed theirs sitting in the shade with a cup of tea. They would politely eat one or two, although I never understood how. I was - and clearly still am - obsessed with their buttery, naughty goodness.
Apparently as was all of Clara City, Minnesota, given a glance at the Bethenny Reformed Church cookbook. There are several recipes by several different names - cereal cookies, oatmeal corn flake cookies, cracked coconut oat cookies (my favorite), and of course ranger cookies. Some recipes call for rice krispies instead of corn flakes, some for shortening instead of butter, but they're all a variation on the same basic recipe. My son noted that these cookies are an early version of the currently uber-popular Momofuku Milk Bar compost cookies - and he's right! I consider these a purer, more elegant form. Then again, nostalgia is a powerful seasoning.
Recipe for Ranger Cookies at TC Taste/Minnesota Monthly Magazine.
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