The famous Neiman Marcus Cookie Recipe!
Blended oatmeal in the cookie dough is the secret ingredient that gives these cookies just a little more texture and body. A batch of homemade Neiman Marcus cookies, full of chocolate chips and nuts, is a guaranteed crowd-pleaser any time of day.
Neiman Marcus Cookie Recipe
Ingredients:
- Oatmeal: the secret to this cookie is OATMEAL! And the secret to the oatmeal is popping it in the blender before adding it to the cookies to make a course flour out of it. Amazing texture and flavor!
- Flour: gluten in the traditional all-purpose flour adds a softness to the texture of the cookie to go with the whole grain oats
- Baking powder and baking soda: these help the cookies to rise and have a nice texture
- Butter: beloved butter makes for a cookie that has great color and lots of flavor
- Brown and granulated sugar: when you combine the two sugar your cookies brown up nicely and have great flavor
- Eggs: these help to bind all of the ingredients together
- Chocolate chips: long live all the chocolate, you can use the type of chocolate chips that you like or have on hand
- Hershey bar: this is the second secret ingredient to these famous cookies and it adds a subtle element to chocolate in every bite, I love this addition
- Chopped nuts: you can use what you like or have on hand, I normally use walnuts or pecans in this recipe
How To Make The Original Neiman Marcus Cookie Recipe At Home
Overall, this is a simple and straightforward cookie recipe. The only extra bit to perfecting Neiman Marcus chocolate chip cookies is blending up some oatmeal and adding some grated chocolate.
- This cookie recipe follows the creaming method, which means you’ll start by creaming butter and sugar in a mixing bowl. If you have a stand mixer, use the paddle attachment on medium-high speed.
- Creaming incorporates air into the butter, which helps your cookies stay light and fluffy. Serious Eats has a great article on the importance of creaming butter and sugar when making cookies.
- I like to mix together the dry ingredients (blended oatmeal, flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda) before creaming, and gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients.
- Mix until everything is just combined, being careful not to overmix, which can result in tough cookies. Finally, fold in your mix-ins: chocolate, more chocolate, and nuts.
- At this point, you can refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes. Chilling creates even thicker, chewier cookies, as the cold dough won’t spread as much in the oven.
- When you’re ready to bake, form balls with your dough and arrange on cookie sheets. I use a #40 disher/scoop to get even cookies that bake into perfect circles. If you bake a lot of cookies like I do, this scoop is a time saver and makes evenly sized cookies every time.
- Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes. Don’t worry about taking them out a couple of minutes before the cookies look fully set. Resting on the hot baking sheets will continue to bake the cookies all the way through. Then, move the cookies to a wire rack to cool fully.
- At this point, if you don’t eat them all straight away, the chocolate chip cookies can be frozen for several months or stored in an airtight container on the counter.
Tip: To bring your butter to the perfect temperature for creaming, cut the butter into tablespoons and put it in your mixing bowl. By the time you’ve assembled all your other ingredients, your butter will be ready to cream.
Video on how to make Neiman Marcus Cookies:
Update: I’ve updated this post with a video and helpful tips and tricks to make these legendary cookies live up to the hype.
The story behind the famous cookie recipe:
The classic Neiman Marcus cookie came as a result of a hoax someone pulled against the Neiman Marcus Cafe. It was said that a woman went to the cafe and loved the cookie she ate so much that she asked for the recipe. The person said that they’d give it to her for “two fifty”. But when her bank statement came she realized that the recipe wasn’t sold to her for $2.50 like she thought, rather for $250. This story spread throughout the country and it became a big ordeal.
The funny thing is, the Neiman Marcus Cafe wasn’t even offering cookies on their menu at that time. So, in response to the hoax over a cookie that didn’t exist, the Neiman Marcus Group created the Neiman Marcus cookie.
The store actually released a version of their cookie recipe a few years ago. While similar to this one, it contains espresso powder and leaves out one very important ingredient.
Why Use Blended Oatmeal in Chocolate Chip Cookies?
Blended oatmeal is the key to the delightful texture of the original Neiman Marcus cookies. It’s the secret ingredient that the store left out of their published recipe.
It only takes just a couple of minutes to make blended oatmeal in your kitchen. Simply add oats to a blender and pulse into a coarse powder.
While oat flour is also a form of oats ground into powder, it’s not a great substitute for the oats in this recipe. Oat flour is much more finely ground than you will achieve in your home blender. It also may change the texture of your cookies.
When choosing oats for these cookies, I always opt for old-fashioned oats, but you can substitute quick-cooking oats if needed. Do not use Instant Oats.
More great cookie recipes:
If you’ve tried this Neiman Marcus cookie recipe or any other recipe on Barbara Bakes, then don’t forget to rate the recipe and leave me a comment below! I would love to hear about your experience making it. And if you snapped some pictures of it, share it with me on Instagram so I can repost on my stories.
Neiman Marcus Cookie Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups oatmeal blended
- 2 cups flour
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup unsalted butter room temperature
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup light brown sugar firmly packed
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 12 oz. chocolate chips 2 cups
- 1 4 oz. Hershey bar, grated
- 1 ½ cups chopped nuts
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degree F.
- Add the oatmeal to a blender and blend into a course flour or powder.
- In a medium bowl, mix together flour, blended oatmeal, salt, baking powder, and baking soda.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugars, on medium-high speed, until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla until well blended, scraping down sides of the bowl as needed.
- Add flour mixture; mix just until blended. Stir in chocolate chips, grated chocolate, and nuts. (Optional: cover dough and chill 30 minutes – add a minute or two to the cook time if using chilled dough.)
- Roll into balls and place two inches apart on cookie sheet. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes.
- Let cookies cool for 5 minutes on baking sheet before transferring cookies to racks to cool completely.
Video
Notes
- Walnuts or pecans are a nice option for this recipe, if you are going to omit them add an additional 3 tablespoons of flour to the recipe.
Nutrition
The Neiman Marcus Cookie is a soft, chewy oatmeal chocolate chip cookie that is perfect with a glass of milk. This recipe is sure to be one that the whole family will enjoy.
Idida
Hi, Do you recommend chilling the dough?
Barbara Schieving
I will often chill my cookie dough before baking for at least 30 minutes. Enjoy!
Deanie
I work at a lovely appliance store. We have several live kitchens displaying each brand in a kitchen set up. I am very blessed to be able to cook and bake and demonstrate the appliances – not to mention get the juices flowing for prospective buyers in the showroom!. I just made these cookies for our showroom guests with amazing success! I did embellish a bit by adding a little cinnamon, used less white sugar and more brown sugar equaling 2 cups, added toasted coconut and heath toffee bits. Just a wee amount of those. I baked them for 10 mins at 350 C0NVECTION. They turned out beautiful & WONDERFULLY DELICIOUS!!! Some of our guests were brave enough to ask for the recipe – which I shared, even with my embellishments. Definitely a keeper recipe.
Barbara Schieving
Sounds like delicious changes. Thanks for sharing Deanie!
Amber Allen
I’m going to make these cookies for the first time today,but I need to know if I should use milk chocolate chips or semisweet chips.
Thanks,
Amber
Barbara Schieving
Hi Amber – you could use milk chocolate but semi-sweet are traditionally used in cookies.
Melissa
These are really good cookies, I make them only once a year cause it requires too much work. I have to blend the oatmeal to a find flour and chop everything up. Its worth it but only once a year and I usually double the recipe. So for people that don’t like oatmeal, they won’t know you put any in them. lol
Barbara Schieving
Thanks Melissa – definitely worth the extra work.
Barbra
I cook these often so I blend a large amount of the oat flour and store in a gallon bag in the freezer.
To save a huge amount of time, I make cookie kits. I measure both sugars and put in a baggie, ditto for the chocolate chips (I combine mini and regular), oat and AP flour goes in its own bag and the nuts in it’s own bag. I have a large white food safe bucket with a lid and keep my cookie prepped kits in there. Whenever I want to make these cookies, I just grab my kit bags and add vanilla, butter and eggs. I can make them so quickly.
Yvette Perez
I have made these and they are delicious. However u am wanting to make double chocolate chip….do you think I can just add cocoa powder?? And if so how much do u think would be enough?
Barbara Schieving
Hi Yvette – If you want a chocolate cookie dough, I would add 1 cup of cocoa powder and only use 1 1/2 cups of the blended oatmeal or you could try only using 1 cup of flour. Based on this recipe https://www.barbarabakes.com/triple-chocolate-smores-cookies/ which my family loves.
Ashley @ Wishes & Dishes
Thanks for linking to my cookies! These look amazing!
Anonymous
hi barbara,
did u grind all the oats to a fine powder? i like the texture of your cookies.
Deborah
I just baked these cookies using l cup whole grain flour and 1 cup all purpose and used chopped pecans. They are fantastic! Thank you.
Judy
This recipe is the ONLY one that my son uses for CCC. I like them very much too.
Amanda
I made these so many years ago I can't even count! LOL They were delicious though, I completely agree 🙂
Melody
The story behind these cookies makes me want to try them more. Thanks!
Kasha
Hey Barbara! Where do I send my $250 check?! Those look amazing! Thank you so much! I hope you have a great weekend!
Netts Nook
Wow Barbara they look just like the ones they serve a Neiman Marcus good job.
CookiePie
Oh yum – those sound so good! I love choc chip cookies, and I bet the oatmeal gives them that extra something-something. Delicious!
mary'smom
I lost this recipe! Thanks for posting it! These cookies are delicious.
Katrina
This used to be my favorite ccc, while I still love it, I've made many since and kind of like making all kinds. Right now the NY Times is my fave. The NM $250 is a great cookie! Yours look awesome.
Elra
Sounds like cookies that worth trying.
RecipeGirl
How funny- I was just browsing this recipe the other day in my chocolate chip cookie file… ended up choosing another one. I've always wanted to try this one too though! Will have to give it a go next time 🙂
finsmom
Ive heard of these and always wanted to try them!
Sara
I've definitely heard of these, but never made them. They look really delicious!