Food joke of the day:

Why did the doughnut go to the dentist?

It needed a chocolate filling.

These cookies are like the Sex in the City of cookies. Or at least I like to think so. Sweet and chewy, these cookies also have a little tang, a little edge, a little pizzazz. And even though there’s only a two ingredient difference between these cookies and normal chocolate chip cookies (so they’re super easy), the orange and rum bring them to a whole new level.

You can adjust the amount of rum and zest you add, but adding much more zest can make the cookies a little bitter so be careful adding too much. The rum is really all according to taste, and the alcohol burns off during cooking so they are every-age-friendly.

Ingredients

2 sticks butter

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

2 tbsp dark rum

1 tbsp orange zest (not packed)

2 eggs

1 cup dark chocolate chips

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 375

Melt and brown butter. Mix sugars with salt and vanilla. Add butter and mix. Add eggs one at a time, stirring. Add rum and orange zest and stir. Combine flour and baking soda, add to sugar mixture and stir. Add chocolate chips. Place on cookie sheet in tbsp size spoonfuls, bake for 7-9 minutes.

Food joke of the day:

Did you hear the joke about oatmeal?

It’s a lot of mush

I’ll confess something: this recipe isn’t technically a chocolate chip cookie recipe. In fact, before this week I had never even thought about adding chocolate chips to these cookies. In my mind, they were perfect without any additions. But in the spirit of adventure, I went ahead and added chocolate, and, surprise surprise, they tasted pretty good.

By “surprise surprise” I actually mean “no surprise at all” because what cookie had ever not been improved by the addition of chocolate?

In my recipe I used big Ghirardelli chips because they were the only size of dark chocolate chips I could find. The  bitterness of dark chocolate complements the sweetness in these cookies well, but I do think the chocolate would spread out more successfully with smaller chips. Next time maybe I’ll do the work of chopping up the chips, but honestly, pockets of dense dark chocolate aren’t the worst thing to appear in a cookie.

Ingredients

1 stick butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tbsp corn syrup (honey works too)

1/2 cup flour

3/4 cup oats (not instant)

2 tbsp milk

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup chocolate chips

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350.

Melt butter in saucepan. Add brown sugar, corn syrup, milk, vanilla and salt. Bring to a simmer, stirring. Add oats and flour, simmer for 3 minutes, stirring. Take off heat and let cool for 10 mins. Add chocolate chips. Spoon batter in tsp size spoonfuls onto cookie sheet. Bake for 6-8 mins, or until golden brown (length of time in oven also depends on your texture preference).

Food joke of the day

What kind of snack to monkeys love?

Chocolate chimp cookies

As I was trying to write this post, I was stymied by my inability to think of an adjective that appropriately describes the texture of cookie I was aiming for. Cakey? Light? Sponge-y? Fluffy? None of them seem quite right, and none of them are very appealing. I settled on soft, because that is these cookies’ defining distinction when compared to the chewy and crunchy cookies I made earlier in the week. “Soft,” though, doesn’t quite capture the satisfying feeling you get when you bite into a cookie that’s full, and easy to bite, and just comforting. It’s like biting a pillow, except delicious instead of feathery.

But I digress.  The main point of this post is the development of this “soft” cookie recipe, which honestly was not an easy journey. After extensive internet research I discovered that most people believe that vanilla pudding mix is the answer to the soft cookie quest. Vanilla pudding being unattainable (read: I didn’t want to go to the store again), I instead focused in on the ingredient that I believed defined the success of the pudding mix: cornstarch.

However, just adding cornstarch to the usually cookie recipe does not magically turn them into soft cookies rather than chewy ones, as I somewhat unrealistically expected. Instead, you must adjust the flour-egg-butter ratio until the cookie has a more cake-like consistency.

Even though I’m a diehard chewy cookie fan, I still thought these cookies were incredibly good. Warm, with a glass of milk? Yum.

Ingredients

3 1/4 cup flour

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

2 sticks butter

2 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp corn starch

1 tsp salt

3 eggs

2 cups chocolate chips (or to taste)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375

Leave butter out to soften. Cream butter in mixer. Add sugar and continue mix until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, add vanilla. Combine flour, baking soda, salt, and cornstarch in separate bowl. Slowly add flour mixture to sugar mixture and continue mixing until smooth and fluffy. Stop mixing, pour chocolate chips into batter and stir gently by hand. Refrigerate batter for 10 mins. Place tablespoon size spoonfuls of dough on sheet, bake for 8-10 mins or until very light brown on top.

Food Joke of the Day:

What did the gingerbread man put on his bed?

A cookie sheet

Having never made crunchy cookies before, I approached this experiment with a little trepidation. I knew that melted butter and brown sugar made cookies chewy, and that creaming the butter and batter should make them cake-y, but I had no idea how to get the crisp, light crunchy cookie I was craving.

Lost in the dark, I eventually turned to the one recipe for cookies that I did know were crunchy: oatmeal lace cookies. The two things I took away from that recipe were a low flour to rest of batter ratio and the use of corn syrup in addition to white and brown sugar.

This combination is what gives the cookies their crunch

The simmering of sugars, butter, and milk is the step that really develops the caramel-y taste of these cookies, and although it can result in a chewier texture if the cookies aren’t cooked for long enough it results in a very light, almost melt-in-your-mouth cookie when done right.

The egg in this recipe is also optional; the eggless versions I made were delicious, but their texture remained stubbornly chewy. They essentially turned into caramel wafers and ended up with a texture similar to peanut brittle, while the versions of this cookie with egg rose slightly more (the egg and baking soda react effectively) and became airy and crisp.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

1 stick butter

3 tbsp corn syrup

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp milk

1 egg

2 tsp vanilla

1 cup chocolate chips (or to taste)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375.

Melt and brown butter in saucepan. Add sugars and corn syrup, stir on low heat until dissolved. Mix flour, baking soda, and salt in separate bowl. Add milk to sugar mixture and bring just to a simmer, add vanilla and take off heat. Stir flour mixture into sugar mixture, stirring until smooth. Let batter cool for 5 minutes (or until not uncomfortably hand-hot) and stir egg into batter. Let batter sit until completely cool, then add chocolate chips. Spoon batter onto cookie sheets in tbsp size spoonfuls.

Bake 9-11 minutes, or until cookie has little give when poked.

Food Joke of the Day:

When should you take a cookie to the doctor?

When it feels crummy

I decided to start the week off easy, with a recipe that has never failed me. By never failed, I really mean never, not when I cooked cookies by myself for the first time when I was 8, not when I decided to make “sophisticated cookies” and threw in an entirely random assortment of spices. Somehow these chewy, buttery, caramel-y cookies have withstood everything that I have put them through.

The melted, browned butter is what really makes these cookies stand out, it creates the rich, chewy cookie that everyone knows and loves.

I also like to make some of these cookies without chips. Without chocolate the cookies become deliciously thin, chewy “sugar cookies” that are way too easy to eat 20 of.

Ingredients

2 cups white flour

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

2 sticks butter

2 eggs

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp vanilla

2 cups chocolate chips (or to taste)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375.

Mix sugars together in bowl. Brown butter lightly, then stir into sugar mixture. Beat eggs and vanilla, then pour slowly into sugar mixture, stirring constantly. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Pour flour mixture into sugar mixture, stir.  Add chocolate chips (amount varies depending on your preference), and stir. Chill batter before baking if you care about pretty, round cookies, otherwise go ahead.

Spoon batter in 1 tbsp spoonfuls onto cookie sheet. Bake for 7-9 minutes, or until golden brown.

Happy eating!