Chocolate Chip Cookies – branching out… on a limb

Cookie Wars- Who’s the Winner? And New (to me) Soft Almond Sugar Cookie Recipe…

My mom and I have been arguing about how to make cookies for about three decades. She says that I have ruined her recipes, I say I have improved them. Her secret? She doubles the sugar in every cookie recipe she makes. Her recipe for “Chocolate Chippers” that is outstanding. I grew up eating these cookies, went on to bake them and share with everyone in high school and beyond. Eventually I sold them by the dozen along with cinnamon rolls and a few other baked goods in our town’s farmers market when The Girl was just a baby. I made a lot of money from those rolls and cookies for one reason- they are DELICIOUS!

If I have sold uncountable dozens of cookies, I think I have earned the right to say that I have not, in fact, ruined the recipe. But amount sold is not the best indicator that my version of these cookies are great- it is the fact that when mom comes over, she is aghast if no cookies are on the counter, in the cupboard, or in the freezer. How can that be? How can there not be at least a bag of them in the freezer?

I do it just to drive her nuts.

I will proceed to drive her further insane by trying a new recipe tonight, one for Soft Almond Sugar Cookies. I was a good kid and easy teenager, and am enjoying all kinds of ways to annoy my mother now. Tonight, all I have to do is follow the recipe that I saved on Pinterest a couple of years ago. By doubling neither the sugar nor the almond flavoring, she will go mental. Just watch- there will be only one comment on this post and it will be from her…

This recipe (and photo on the left) comes from CodyKitchenConfection over at Blogspot. I followed the recipe exactly, except (and there is always an except) I used all-purpose flour instead of cake flour. I thought that two teaspoons of almond wouldn’t be enough- the dough didn’t have enough almond flavor, but the cookies sure did. These were great! Mine came out more flat, but I blame it on not refrigerating the dough… as per the recipe (OK, I didn’t follow the recipe exactly). I’ll see how the second half of the dough turns out after sitting in the fridge overnight.

They don't look the same, but it is probably my fault... — They don’t look the same (my fault) but they taste GREAT!

These are an nice, soft, super-almondy sugar cookie, and I’d make them again. The Girl is in the kitchen stuffing her face full of cookies as I type. You are going to love them, mom, if she leaves you any.

Headline: “Old Dog Learns New Trick, Teens Unimpressed”

Check me out, I learned how to use Excel today. I haven’t used a spread sheet since I was a high school teacher, and that was on an Apple II e- yes, I am officially a dinosaur. There have been many, many times recently that I would have benefited from having this skill and it was curiosity that finally drove me to it. I wanted to know how many calories were in one of my Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Sticking to about 1200 calories/day? You're looking at more than a complete meal if you have that milk, too. — Sticking to about 1200 calories/day? You’re looking at more than a complete meal, over 500 calories, if you have that milk, too.

Fortunately for me, I converted my go-to recipes to grams instead of cups- try it, you can whack out a batch of sweets in no time flat when you aren’t fighting to cram shortening into a one cup measure. All I do now is place my mixing bowl on my handy-dandy digital scale, dump an ingredient into my work bowl and zero out the weight with each new ingredient.

All it took was double checking calories per gram of ingredients on a couple of web sites and voilà! When it came to finding all the calories per gram of ingredient, Google was great, so were company websites, like Nestle. All the info you didn’t want to know about home made cookies, now in one convenient spot.

To all my friends who have been eating these cookies over the years, don’t look…. Sorry.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
# of Cookies	144

Total Cal	13789
Total Cal/cookie	95.75

ingredient	cal/gram	# of grams	total	cal/cookie
flour	4	675	2700	18.75
white sugar	4	620	2480	17.222
brown sugar	4	445	1780	12.3611
shortening	9	330	2970	20.625
butter	7	110	770	5.3472
chips	5	545	2725	18.923
egg (per)	72	4	288	2
vanilla (T)	38	2	76	0.5277

not all ingredients are listed…

Sharing Cookies and Thoughts on Practice and Past Times…

So, there are these people who work for The Husband… they deserve more than cookies. Lol. I’ve seriously been meaning to get treats to them for a long time. This is quite a group of highly intelligent, dedicated, and really interesting people! I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies and crammed more than three dozen into a bag for The Husband to bring into a meeting today. Hopefully, everyone will get two cookies… maybe I should’ve sent in more.

I can crank out 12 dozen cookies in under two hours, including pans and kitchen cleaned, honestly, because I’ve made this recipe for 30+ years. I’ve made and sold hundreds of dozens of cinnamon rolls and can knock out a couple dozen with minimum effort. And I love cooking! It is a lot like an athlete’s love of practicing to develop muscle memory in a sport- I bet that anyone with a passion for anything would agree. Years of practice means few wasted steps in my kitchen; I know which equipment and ingredients to grab, measure, and use. Practice makes perfect, no matter what you are practicing… so be careful where you spend your time, right?

Pile o' cinnamon rolls for the teachers and school staff. — Pile o’ cinnamon rolls for school.

Nothing makes a baker happier than finding people with whom to share the goodies. In January I bring cinnamon rolls to the teachers and staff for Teacher Appreciation Day- ironically, I’m sure I feel more appreciated when they say they look forward to the rolls each year (Cinnabon knock-offs, I swear they are exactly like the shops in malls). It makes me happy.

I identity with these stickers... — I identify with these stickers…

I run a couple miles most mornings so I can eat that second taco or have a nightly glass of wine.

Amazon.com 0.0 I Don't Run — …links to Amazon.com
0.0
I Don’t Run

If people don’t share these cookies and other treats, I’m going to have to earn one of those 13.1 or 26.2 stickers for the back of my own sweet ride. Bake on, people… and keep running, too.