New Recipe: Doubletree Hotel Copycat Chocolate Chip Cookies

It's been a while since I've shared a new recipe that I tried...and this one turned out really well! I've heard talk of these great cookies at the Doubletree hotels. My mom used to talk about them from when she had stayed in one. Apparently they give you these delightful chocolate chip cookies when you check in and this recipe is supposed to be a copy cat of those. I can't say if it's accurate or not since I've never had one from Doubletree. But I did eat one of these and they're great! I'm re-writing the recipe here but I've put a link to the original recipe below it as well. 

Doubletree Hotel Copycat Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup rolled/old fashioned oats
• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened (two sticks and I did use unsalted)
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons pure vanilla (I used 1 1/2)
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 2 large eggs
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (original recipe says unbleached but I'm not sure it matters)
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 3 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used Toll House)
• 1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (original recipe calls for walnuts but I'm not a fan so I used pecans)

Directions:

• Grind up your oats in a food processor until semi-fine (or fine but I couldn't get mine fine) and set them aside.
• In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter, both sugars, vanilla, and lemon juice. Add the eggs one at a time until blended and smooth (make sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl so everything gets mixed together).
• In a separate, smaller bowl mix together the oats, flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Add this mixture to the wet ingredients (I like to add it a little at a time) until it's all combined but becareful not to over mix it.
• Mix in the chocolate chips and nuts - I did this using a spatula, not my mixer. Again, don't over mix.
• Drop cookie dough on a lined baking sheet (I use parchment paper but if you have one of those fancy silpat things you can use that too) using 3 tablespoons of batter per cookie (I have a 1 tablespoon cookie scoop so I used three of those per cookie), then refrigerate these for 2-4 hours (or overnight) *see notes/suggestions 
• Bake cookies at 350 for 14-16 minutes depending on your oven or how you like your cookies. Once baked, move them to a cooling rack.
• Enjoy!

Recipe Source: The Little Kitchen

Notes/Suggestions:

• I didn't have time for that "refridgerate for 2-4 hours" business so I stuck those babies in the freezer to firm up and it worked just fine. Maybe 10-15 minutes? And I had another pan in the fridge. I'd move the one from the freezer to the oven, then the one in the fridge to the freezer. Worked great.
• I made the recipe exactly as the original recipe said to except for the walnuts. I'm sure Doubletree uses walnuts and that the cookies are great but we're not a walnut-loving household so I went with pecans. 
• Usually when a recipe says to use unsalted butter, I say "whatever" but this time I did use it. These were for Husband's work husband's last day and I didn't want them to taste funky. Evidently, I did well because they were a hit.
• Lemon juice in chocolate chip cookies? Weird, right? Don't leave it out! It made the batter smell AMAZING and the cookies smelled even better when they were cooking! My whole house smelled great :)
• MAKE THEM! They sound like a lot of work but so worth it!