Christmas is for cookies!
I was feeling the Christmas spirit while listening to Christmas tunes on my way to work this morning. In turn, I was inspired to bake some cookies this evening. I began with a mix I purchased from Celebrating Home. It is an apple crisp oatmeal cookie mix. Scott loves oatmeal cookies, and I've found that it's difficult to make plain oatmeal cookies short of using a purchased mix of some kind. I HATE raisins, and while Scott doesn't dislike them, he prefers oatmeal cookies to oatmeal raisin ones. I can't find a recipe for just oatmeal cookies, and when I try to make them by simply omitting raisins from an oatmeal raisin cookie, they come out totally wrong.
I digress. As it turns out the mixture yielded a yummy oatmeal cookie, though not nearly as many as they said there should be on the package. Oh, and if anyone out there in cyber space has a recipe for plain old oatmeal cookies, feel free to share.....
After the oatmeal cookies, I made the cookie I joke is my "specialty": Chocolate Chip Cookies. Growing up, my brother and I would go to my aunt Rita's house with Mom to make Christmas cookies. We loved helping, and as I got older, I was given more and more responsibility to make the chocolate chip cookies and eventually was allowed to do so without help. Not only that, but chocolate chip cookies are one of my all time favorites. This year, I decided to follow the recipe from my Betty Crocker Cook Book, and the cookies are delicious. You may now indulge yourself in my cookie-baking experience (it's less fattening that actually eating them, right???? lol)
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients:
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 tsp vanilla
1 large egg
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup coarsely chopped nuts
1 bag (12 oz) semisweet chocolate chips (2 cups)
I've NEVER made my chocolate chip cookies with nuts in my entire life, but I had some walnuts on hand, and I decided it would be a nice change.
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. In large bowl, mix sugars and butter. *The BCCB says to beat sugars, butter, vanilla, and egg with an electric mixer or by hand. Part of my "training" as a child was to mix just the sugars and butter first. Then add the vanilla and egg. THEN beat in vanilla and egg.
3. Stir in flour, baking soda, and salt (dough will be stiff).
4. Stir in nuts and chocolate chips.
5. On ungreased cookie sheet, drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart.
6. Bake 8-10 minutes or until light brown (centers will be soft). Cool 1-2 minutes remove from cookie sheet to wire rack.
May I also add that this set of 3 wire racks is among the best gifts I received at my bridal shower. The set is from Bed, Bath, & Beyond and is stackable, which really helps when you have very little counter space like me.
I also bought ingredients to make peanut butter cookies. I got a cookie press (that has discs that push out dough into different shapes) that I'm hoping to try with the peanut butter cookie dough. You can be sure that I'll be blogging about that!