The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

Hey all,

I’m going to be MIA for awhile because of my move (no internet and cleaning!). But, in the mean time, I made some of the best traditional chocolate chip cookies that I have to tell you about!!

My “welcome back” gift!

The professor I’ve been house-sitting for finally came home from her trip abroad. I knew she’d be exhausted from her long trip, and I decided to bake her some “Welcome home!” chocolate chip cookies (her favorite!) and leave them in a decorated to-go container. (Who knew I’d be in my late 20s and still baking for my teacher??) Anyway, I had a sturdy black and white to-go container from a restaurant (that I kept for a day like this!). I soaked the container in hot, soapy water to clean and freshen, and I also had some pretty $1 orange ribbon and labels on hand.  I looked for a recipe online and saw the “Best Chocolate Chip Cookies” Recipe on Allrecipes.com. There were 4 thousand reviews of the recipe with a high 4 and 1/2 stars rating, which means this recipe HAS to be good. (Or, at least decent, right? ) I decided to give it a go.

I can honestly say this is the best standard cookie recipe I’ve ever found. My cookies came out crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside. They even came out aesthetically pleasing! Perfectly round and thick. I really loved this recipe! I used the recipe without changes, although I added a tsp of cream of tartar as suggested in a few of the emails. I also cooked my cookies a bit larger than suggested, which means they took about 15-20 minutes to bake, as opposed to 8-12 minutes. Honestly, I recommend this recipe if you need to bake some crowd-pleasing traditional chocolate chip cookies. Here’s the recipe from Allrecipes with my addition!

Banana Chocolate Cornmeal Cookies

You will never believe it, Burlesquers: I watched 5 episodes of Bones last night. How is that possible? 200 minutes of sustained tv-watching?!

Okay, admittedly, I’ve been very good with my time: getting up at 6 am, at the gym by 7 am, showering and having breakfast by 8:30 am, and at school by 9:30 am. I then stay on campus til 5 or 6 and come home, and just relax! Despite having a flexible schedule, I do enjoy structuring my day like a 9-to-5 job. I am able to come home and not worry about my work (as much), which has been revolutionary for me, really. To reward myself for getting back to the gym and being so productive, why not watch an insane amount of episodes of my new favorite show?? I earned it! Plus, two of the geeky supporting characters, Angela and Hodgins, just went on their first date (I am only on Season 2), and I was beyond excited to see the episode. (I love fan-made stills and videos…they’re too funny!)

from Fanpop.com

****Side note: what is it with me and loving strange and/or geeky characters? House, Sherlock, Bones, and Castle are my favorite shows right now, and they all involve some sort of science, detective work, romance, and…..geeks. And I usually think these geeks are incredibly good looking (cough cough Castle, House, Hodgins! cough cough). Come on! Dreamy, right?

from telechimp.com

Maybe it’s because I’m in graduate school and see some of these “types” in real-life action?  Try mingling at a grad student party—the awkwardness alone makes me laugh! (Not that I’m any better….. I tend to giggle and become excitable when I’m nervous! I have to constantly work on being “serious”!)

Anyway, I wanted to enjoy a dessert with my tv craze. But I wanted something different. And I still needed to use up a Jiffy Corn mix and a banana pudding mix in my cupboard. How about putting those two together to make a fun cookie?! Behold, the absolutely delightful Banana Chocolate Cornmeal Cookie!

Banana Chocolate Cornmeal Cookies

Yum!

These cookies look and taste just like a normal cookie, except they’re made from a jiffy corn mix, which gives them an interesting texture! The pudding mix, butter, and banana kept the dough moist, and all the ingredients together made a wonderful banana chocolate cookie!  These cookies were eaten by multiple friends of mine and gone within a day. (I might have had 4 of them, too….)

I think you could do other fun combinations with this recipe, like trade out the banana for strawberries! Or even add in nuts, like a pecans. Mmmmm! Delicious! Enjoy!

Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake Muffins (and a DIY baker’s library decal)

Hey all,

Tonite I was really bored, Burlesquers.  I’d caught up with ALL of my favorite television shows, I had already gone to the gym, I didn’t want to spend money on a full price movie ticket (when I could buy a matinee ticket), and I had done all my chores for the weekend. (And clearly, I didn’t want to do work-work, as in job-related work.) What’s a girl to do on a lonely Sunday evening?!

Bake Coffee Cake Cupcakes, of course!!

Putting those babies in the oven, mmmmm!

Yum!

Now that I’ve stumbled upon Smitten Kitchen’s blog, I can’t get enough of her recipes. They’re fun to make, and easy to adapt! Ron requested Coffee Cake tonite, so I looked on Smitten’s site for a recipe. Bingo! Sour Cream Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake. I didn’t have sour cream, but I had Greek Yogurt. I also wanted this cake to be more spicy-sweet with nuts and in individual portions. I ended up making a version of Smitten’s cake as cupcakes and used greek yogurt, lots of cinnamon, less chocolate chips, brown sugar instead of white sugar, and pecans. Um, yeah, BEST idea this weekend. Ron and I polished off 3 of these cupcakes between the two of us. My adaptation really helped spice up this recipe!

Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake Muffins

Ingredients

Cake
1/4 cup unsalted butter at room temperature

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup chopped pecans

2 large eggs, separated

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup greek yogurt

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1  teaspoons baking soda

1/3 teaspoon table salt

Filling and Topping
3/4 cup semi- or bittersweet chocolate chips

1/4 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a cupcake pan and spray each liner with Pam. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar. Beat in egg yolks and vanilla. Sift flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt together into a separate bowl. Alternately mix in greek yogurt and then dry ingredients into butter mixture until both are used up and the batter is smooth and very thick. In a medium bowl, beat eggs whites until stiff, then fold into batter.

In a small dish, whisk together sugar and cinnamon for filling and topping.

Spread half the cake batter in the bottom of prepared muffin tins. Sprinkle with half of cinnamon-sugar mixture and half of the chocolate chips. Dollop remaining cake batter over filling in spoonfuls. Use a rubber or offset spatula to gently spread it over the filling and smooth the top. Sprinkle batter with remaining cinnamon-sugar and remaining chocolate chips.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, rotating halfway through, until a tester inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on the top of the muffins, or even dip the tops in cinnamon sugar. Time for a sweet treat!

Cookbook library decal

PS! I’m feeling a little playful today, and I thought this cookbook library decal by Mariai Danalakis (on the AgentLover blog) is adorable!  If any of you have decal paper and an ink jet printer, you simply print this jpg out on your decal paper, and press into the front of your favorite cookbooks. (And don’t forget to sign!) You will have the most adorable lending library on your block!

Banana Chocolate Chip Granola Cookies

Every on-the-go lady or gentleman needs a good travel snack, right? How about (healthy) Banana Chocolate Chip Granola Cookies? I am using (and changing a bit) blogger Georgia’s Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Granola bar recipe from her handy cooking cite, the Comfort of Cooking. (Photo of Georgia’s sweet idea: homemade granola bars.)

I adapted Georgia’s recipe into Banana Chocolate Chip Granola Cookies, substituting her pumpkin for a mashed banana (that’s what I had on hand!), cutting down the sugar (because bananas sweeten more than pumpkin), adding natural peanut butter for more protein, and pressing the granola into the bottoms of a muffin tin for a more cookie-like shape (I was too lazy to cut them into bars, whoops).  These are delicious enough (and healthy enough) to be eaten as a snack or dessert. And you know how I love my dessert. You can also leave out the chocolate for simply Peanut Butter and Banana Granola bars. That would be a healthy fix!

My Banana Chocolate Chip Granola Cookies, yum!