Joanne Chang explains in the headnote to her recipe for "Chunky Lola Cookies" in Flour that the cookie's name was the winning entry in a naming contest from one of the bakery's customers. But no story was submitted with the name, so Chang still doesn't know who Lola is! Fun moniker aside, this cookie is filled with stuff I like: oats, chocolate, pecans, and coconut. How could I resist?
To make the dough, you cream room temperature butter with sugar and brown sugar until light and fluffy; mix in eggs and vanilla; and add the dry ingredients (flour, old-fashioned oats, baking soda, kosher salt, bittersweet chocolate, toasted chopped pecans, and sweetened shredded coconut). You need to chill the dough for at least a few hours before baking, so I made the dough a full 24 hours and advance and kept it in the fridge until I was ready to bake.
I did some experimenting with subsequent pans of cookies and finally settled on a baking time of 14 minutes. That produced cookies with dark golden edges but centers that still looked almost raw. Fortunately, carry-over cooking ensured that the centers were actually cooked by the time all was said and done. I loved these cookies. The coconut and oats gave them a wonderful texture and all of the decadent mix-ins gave me the sensation of eating something that was more like a candy bar than a cookie. The cookies were thick and chewy, with crisp edges. I have to admit that even my first very overbaked first pan of cookies were delicious, if a bit firm.
These cookies were positively decadent. I don't need to know who Lola is to know that these cookies rock!
Recipe: "Chunky Lola Cookies" from Flour by Joanne Chang.
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