‘Naughty but Nice’ Chocolate Almond Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
How do you create something that is naughty but nice? By allowing no vice.
I created this recipe about a year ago driven by the need to wean myself off of highly-processed fruit cereal bars and to curb some of the chocolate treats Clint likes to have when he gets a little hungry.
Since then I’ve modified it until last week, I declared it was a recipe good enough to share.
At the Stark’s we have a jar of these cookies on the kitchen island.
Loni’s ‘Naughty but Nice’ chocolate almond oatmeal raisin cookies
(aka. Loni’s ‘Naughty but Nice” cookies)Feel free to half this recipe. This makes two large cookie sheets of approx. 1 1/2″ in diameter cookie mounds.
The Naughty
- 1/2 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips. Sometimes I will take a large bar of Ghirardelli chocolate and chop it up with my special ulu knife from Alaska
- 2 tablespoons of butter
- 1/2 cup of brown sugar (sometimes I put in even less)
- 2 medium-sized bananas
The Nice
- 1/2 cup of organic raisins
- 1/2 cup of toasted, unsalted, sliced almonds
- 4 cups of oats (old-fashion, not the quick cook)
- 1/2 cup of organic, non-fat, plain yogurt
- 1/2 cup of flax seed meal
The Rest
- 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour or whole wheat flour
- 2 teaspoons of baking powder
- 1 teaspoon of baking soda
- 2 large eggs
- 2 tablespoons of vanilla extract
Get the oven toasty hot at 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix thoroughly.
Add in oatmeal, raisins, chocolate chips, flax seed meal, and almonds.
In a deep bowl or large measuring cup, mix together butter, bananas, eggs, yogurt, vanilla extract and sugar with a hand blender.
Pour wet ingredients into the large bowl with the dry ingredients. Use a spoon to combine mixture gently.
Drop small tablespoons of batter onto baking sheets. You can vary the size of your cookies, but I like them small and bite-sized.
Bake until cookies are medium-brown on the edges which should take around 15-20 minutes. I like to keep my cookies in the oven for even longer as I like my cookies nice a crunchy, but it is all personal preference at this point.
Store in an air-tight jar and enjoy!
Loni Kao StarkCo-Founder StarkSilverCreek, Creative Director and Wine Collector
Loni is a self-professed foodie, adventure travel seeker and aspiring artist. It’s been said her laugh can be heard from San Jose all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge. The former Ms. Global Petite runner-up is host of several SSC shows including WineTube TV, StarkSilverCreek Presents, Loreto Live, and the new series The Artist Diaries. Between busy travel schedules to Washington, Napa and global destinations such as Australia, the Baja and Europe, she expends the rest of her energy collecting wines, practicing “escape artist”-style cooking, and building what she hopes, one day, will be a real estate empire. She catches her breath by writing about her adventures.
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The naughty but nice cookies sound yummy, but I’d like to make them in bar form, since it’s so much faster. Have you tried them this way? If so, do you add an extra egg?
Thanks! Ann
Hi Ann – I think an extra egg would not hurt this recipe, however I don’t think it is necessary to make this into a bars.
You can just bake them as a flat sheet and cut them. I would consider reducing baking temp to 350 Fahrenheit.
I make them into cookie shape so that I can have one as a snack or a couple as a meal replacement. I also like the surface area to volume ratio as the outside browned area are the tastiest…personal preference.
Good luck and let me know how it goes.
Best,
Loni
hey these sound wicked. but what of the flour? you listed it in the directions but ot in the ingredients… ive already started, and thinking i might omit flour all together. bad idea??
thanks!
Hi Jesse – Thanks for pointing this out. I will update the ingredients list.
It is 2 cups of unbleached all-purpose flour or you can use whole wheat flour too. You can reduce the flour but if you do this, make sure you let the mixture of wet and dry ingredients sit for 20 min before baking. I would not eliminate ALL the flour personally as the cookies will have trouble binding.