60 in 60: Day 5- Chocolate Chip Cookies

Today's cookie: Best Ever Big Chocolate Chip Cookies
Today's recipe: Is delicious and found here.

Best Ever Big Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cups unsalted butter (melted)
2 cups brown sugar (firmly packed)
1 cup white sugar
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
3 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips or chunks

You might notice in the ingredient list that is says baking soda and that there is baking powder in the picture. My bad. Truthfully, I freaked for the first 15 minutes (aka the first batch of cookies), then I took them out of the oven. The only difference it made was that the cookies are a lot flatter than they should have been. Also, they've got little pools of crusties around the actual cookie. No big deal if this should happen to you during this recipe. I can't taste the difference here.

Preheat oven to 325 F. Grease cookie sheets. Combine flour, baking soda and salt in one bowl.


MELT THAT BUTTAH!


In another bowl, cream melted butter and both the brown sugar and white sugar until well blended.


Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until the consistency is light and creamy.


Mix in the flour, baking soda and salt from the other bowl until blended.


DO NOT SKIMP ON THE CHOCOLATE CHIPS!!!!
This is a very important step and I don't want you to forget it, because without the chocolate chips these cookies would just be sugar cookies, and I've already made those once this week.


Stir in the chocolate chunks by hand.


Drop 1/4 cup of dough onto the prepared cookie sheets. The cookies should be about 3 inches apart as they spread a bit.


Bake for 15 to 18 minutes at 325F or until golden brown. Let sit on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.


The worst thing about this recipe is that the cookies are so big that I could only fit four or five on a cookie sheet at once, and each batch in the oven took about fifteen minutes, so the whole yield took just under an hour in the oven.



Recipe Yield: n/a
My Yield: 27 HUGE cookies

60 in 60: Day 4- Peanut Butter Surprise!

Today's cookie: Peanut Butter Surprise!
Toady's recipe: Found here

Peanut Butter Surprise (!)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg

Filling:
3/4 cup powdered sugar
3/4 cup peanut butter

Preheat oven to 375 Combine flour, cocoa and soda.


Beat sugars, butter and peanut butter.


Beat in the egg and vanilla.


Stir in the flour mixture and blend well. Set aside.


Make the filling by blending the powdered sugar and peanut butter.


Roll the filling into 1" balls.


The filling dough really didn't look like it would stay together. But, because of the peanut butter, all it took was a little bit of molding to make it stick. I'd totally recommend this recipe to people with kids, because this part is just like playing with play dough.

Shape a tablespoon of balls around each peanut butter ball. Place onto ungreased cookie sheet 2" apart


flatten each one with a glass (dip in sugar for something extra!)


Bake for 7-9 minutes. Cool.

Compared to my past few days, this was a very simple recipe to make. The only real way to screw it up would be to burn the cookies a bit because you're too busy chatting with your sister on facebook. But even then, just dip the cookie in some milk and it's not bad. If I were rating this cookie on EBay, I'd give it an A+++++ would make/eat again.


Recipe yield: 30
My yield: 30!

60 in 60: Day 3- Butter Crunch Clusters

Today's cookie: Butter Crunch Clusters
Today's Recipe: Found here

Butter Crunch Clusters

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter or margarine
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon corn syrup
2 cups Cheerio-shaped cereal
1 cup salted peanuts

Heat butter in 3-quart saucepan over low heat until melted.


Stir in brown sugar and corn syrup.


Heat to boiling over medium heat, stirring constantly.
Boil and stir 1 minute; remove from heat.



Stir in cereal and peanuts until well coated.


At this point, because of a minor kitchen accident, I had to add another cup of butter, a few handfuls of brown sugar, and another tablespoon of corn syrup to the recipe because the mixture fell apart in the pot as I was cleaning the mess off the floor (barefoot, FTW).

Drop mixture by tablespoonfuls onto waxed paper; cool.


For the most part, this was an easy recipe. I'd just recommend having all the ingredients measured out in non-breakable cups beforehand, otherwise you'll just have brown sugar and corn syrup coated cereal with peanuts in a pot. Probably because of my klutz, these cookies didn't really stay together too well. I'm sure you could replace the cheerios and peanuts with Honey Nut O's and still have the same taste with less ingredients.


Recipe Yield: n/a
My Yield: About 3 dozen

60 in 60: Day 2-Sugar Cookies


Today's cookie: Old Fashioned Soft Sugar Cookies
Today's recipe: Found here.

After yesterday's deliciousness, I thought I needed something a bit less chocolaty. It's a sin against nature, I know, but oddly enough there are people that just don't like chocolate. I have all the recipes planned out ahead so I know what to buy for the week, but also because I want to have a bit of variety in this project. There are only so many different kinds of cookies, you know.

Old Fashioned Soft Sugar Cookies

Ingredients:

4 1/2 cups Flour
2 tsp Baking powder
1 tsp Baking soda
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Nutmeg
1 1/2 cup Shortening
2 cups Sugar
2 Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla extract
1/2 tsp Lemon extract
1 cup Buttermilk

Stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and the nutmeg.


In large mixing bowl, beat shortening for 30 seconds until smooth and creamy.


Add sugar and beat until fluffy.
Add in eggs, vanilla extract and lemon extract, beating well.


Add in flour mixture, beating until thoroughly mixed.


So, it was at about this point in the recipe that I had to stop, take a step back, and look at my dough. This did not look like normal cookie dough. I thought that perhaps I had too much flour or too much sugar. Too much dry or not enough wet. My boyfriend, who was taking pictures for me, pointed out to me that I didn't add any buttermilk. I reread the recipe 3 times, once out loud, nowhere in the recipe does it say to add the buttermilk. I took this time to add it in. I'm pretty sure it should be added before you beat in the flour mixture, but that didn't happen here.

The buttermilk stands alone.

This is what the dough is supposed to look like:

Divide mixture in half. Cover with plastic wrap and chill about 3 hours or until it is easy to handle.


More waiting. If ever there's a cookie that I'm going to have to chill overnight, I might just die. Also, you might notice, I think I'm the only person in the world that doesn't buy plastic wrap*, so I ripped a plastic baggie in half and used that as a cover.


To make large cookies, roll the dough 1/2 inch thick.
Cut into rounds with a round 3 inch cookie cutter or glass.
To make small cookies, roll the dough about 3/8 inch thick and cut into smaller rounds, about 2 inches.


These cookies seem to go from one extreme to the other. When I pulled them out of the fridge after 3 hours** the damn dough was too wet. I added flour and more flour, but eventually gave up and just cut the damn things. The cookies weren't all that pretty, but they were cookies, dammit. My favorite one is the tall bear. He makes me smile.


Place cookies 2 1/2 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheets.
Sprinkle cookies with additional sugar. Use colored sugar, if desired.
Bake cookies in a 375 degree F oven for 10-12 mins.


I managed to burn the first batch (and my tall bear) along with my thumb. It was a sad five minutes of cookie hell in this house.


I'd like to point out that I was unaware that the oven needed cleaning this badly until I took the following picture.


Remove cookies to cool.


These cookies weren't bad at all. I didn't find them as delicious as yesterday's cookies, but I'm not a huge fan of sugar cookies at all. My boyfriend really seems to enjoy them. The lemon extract really did the trick, I think. It added a big burst of flavor throughout the cookie. One word of caution though- if you don't like the smell of nutmeg, this cookie is not the one for you. They've been baked completely through for at least ten minutes and I can still smell the nutmeg.


Recipe Yield: n/a
My Yield: 5 dozen cookies, minus a few burnt ones.

I realised today that I'm still 28 recipes short. If you have any cookie recipes for me, please give me an e-mail at coderster@gmail.com or leave the recipe in a comment. I know I need some sugar free cookies somewhere down the line, so those would be helpful. Also, if you have a vastly changed recipe that doesn't even resemble the original anymore (like Heather) I'll take those, too.

*except for practical jokes involving my friend's vehicles
**plus a trip to Wal-Mart to look for cookie cutters. They had none. I could make a muffin that looked like a turkey, but damn if I could cut my cookie like a star.

60 in 60: Day 1- S'mores Cookie Bars

Today's cookie: S'mores Cookie Bars
Today's Recipe: Found here.

I have been overly excited to start this project in the past few weeks. Yesterday and Saturday my boyfriend and I went to Aldi's and Wal-Mart to get cookie supplies for this week. There are a few interesting ingredients for this week's cookies in, what I've dubbed, the cookie box. (There's also a bag of half-eaten stale movie popcorn from Saturday in there, but that isn't part of the ingredients.)

S'mores Cookie Bars

Ingredients:

1/3 cups Unsalted butter (softened)
1/3 cup Vegetable shortening
2/3 cup Brown sugar (firmly packed)
1 Egg
1/2 tsp Vanilla extract
1 cup Graham cracker crumbs
2/3 cups All purpose flour
1/4 tsp Salt
6 tbsp Whipping cream
9 oz. Milk chocolate candy bars (chopped)
1 cup Mini marshmallows

I was doing the ingredient list by memory and knew that I needed graham crackers for these cookies, but it completely slipped my mind that I needed crumbs and not actual crackers. It probably didn't help my memory that I took almost a complete five minutes deciding whether I wanted "cinnamon" or "honey" graham crackers. (I went for honey, by the way.) So, I get to smash the graham crackers first thing.


Now with more SMASH action.


If you needed to know, about 5 1/2 graham crackers equals 1 cup of graham cracker crumbs.


Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Grease a 9x13" baking pan.
Combine softened butter, vegetable shortening, brown sugar, egg and vanilla extract in medium mixing bowl. Beat at medium speed until well blended.
Combine the graham cracker crumbs, flour and salt together, and add to creamed mixture, mixing at low speed until blended.


Spread the dough evenly into greased pan.


When I first dumped the mixture in to the pan it didn't look like it was going to cover the entire bottom. But, amazingly, and with a bit of work, it did. There may have been a few holes in the bottom crust, but it didn't seem to hurt the cookies.

Bake for about 15 minutes or until edges are lightly browned and the middle is set but still slightly soft. Allow to cool completely.


Make topping by placing cream in a heavy saucepan, bringing to a simmer.
Remove cream from heat, stirring in chocolate pieces until melted.


9oz of chopped chocolate bars is equal to just under 6 Hershey bars. That means you can eat a few pieces as you're waiting for the whipping cream to boil.

Stir in the marshmallows.


Spread mixture evenly over the cooked crust.


Refrigerate until firm before slicing into bars.


This was the hardest part of the entire recipe, trust. I hate waiting. I'm not very good at it. Especially when things look and smell delicious. Speaking of looks- the recipe didn't call for the marshmallow toppers on the cookie bars, but it looked like it needed something so I added, say, an extra 2 cups of marshmallows to the recipe. Now it looks even MORE delicious.


Recipe Yield: 1 9x13 pan of deliciousness
My Yield: 1 9x13 pan of deliciousness, minus a hole here and there.