Alternative Title: "Sam finds another excuse to break her self-imposed moratorium on cookie-baking."
I've been a) very sick and b) attempting to reduce my cookie intake, hence the lack of updates recently. However, my friend is having a party tomorrow and she requested that I make cookies. That is more than enough excuse for me, so here goes...
I tried variation of my usual chocolate chip cookie recipe. I followed the basic recipe with two exceptions:
1) I use Ener-G egg replace, which calls for the addition of two tablespoons of water. I used one tablespoon of water and one of vanilla coffee creamer. Using coffee creamer this way is a great (read: cheap) way to enhance/change the flavor of cookies. Coconut creamer is especially good, for those who love coconut. (I don't, but I've used it when making cookies for those who do, and they've loved it).
2) I decided to try Dorie Greenspan's suggestion of chopping my own chocolate rather than using chips. Using a fantastic Trader Joe's dark chocolate pound plus bar that my family kindly sent when they found out I was sick, I made my own chocolate chunks.
The resulting cookie dough was tasty, and had uneven sized chocolate bits in every cookie.
The cookies themselves also turned out well:
(The trick is to take the cookies out of the oven just before they actually look done. They will finish baking on the pan and be very soft).
The advantage to chopping your own chocolate is that you generally get better quality chocolate in bars than you do in commercial chocolate chips. Of course, it helps if you a) live near a Trader Joe's store, or b) have nice family members who will mail you pound plus bars.
The second variety of cookie is one I came up with as part of an attempt to use up extra Halloween candy. My friend and I each bought a huge bag of mixed chocolates from Costco, you know... for kids. I had, however, a grand total of one trick-or-treater. In an attempt to not eat the whole bag myself, I decided to experiment with adding chopped candy to my cookies. The base cookie recipe is exactly the same as the standard one except that I used one cup of flour and 1/4 c cocoa powder instead of 1 1/4 C flour. I then added M&M's, peanut butter chips, and chopped up Mars Bars, Snickers Bars, Nestle Crunch Bars, and Snickers Fudge bars. I basically added candy "until it looked pretty," as my family would say. I'm not sure I'll use Mars Bars in the future, as they tend to melt and then stick to the pan.
Cookie dough before baking:
Cookies:
All in all, a happy time baking was had by me, although by the time I was finished my temperature had risen by 2 degrees (Fahrenheit), proving that I'm not as fully recovered as I'd hoped. Oh well, it was totally worth it.
