See Jess Run

Food for Fun: Favorite Cookies for Dad

My Favorite Cookies Ever

I’ve been baking the same oatmeal chocolate chip cookies since I was four years old. Over the past twenty years, I’ve tweaked the recipe into utter perfection. Perfection to me, that is, and perfection to the rest of my immediate family. The trick is to take them out of the oven at the right time, which can take practice.

And so when I spoke to my dad on the phone before he came to visit, we discussed the cookies:

Me: What kind of food do you need me to get?  Normal milk?

Dad: What kind of milk do you have now?

Me: Soy

Dad: OH goodness no!

Me: Ok…and do you want cookies, or are you on a New Year’s diet?

Dad: If we’re talking about your chocolate chip cookies, then yes, I want them.

I made a half batch, because I wanted to try a new cookie as well, but here’s my recipe in full batch form.

Ingredients

1 cup butter (I’ve used a variety of margarines and spreads that you aren’t supposed to use for baking, including Promise Light and all have returned delicious cookies. But I think that’s just me.)

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 heaping tsp. cinnamon, plus a few shakes if you’re like me and really like cinnamon

1/4 – 1/2 tsp. salt

3 cups Old-fashioned oats

1 regular bag semi-sweet chocolate chunks, or more to taste

Directions

Preheat oven to 350*

Beat together butter and sugars

Add eggs and vanilla

Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt and add to wet ingredients

Stir in oats and chocolate.

Form into balls of desired size and bake. This usually takes 10-12 minutes, but depends on size of cookies. It is important to take them out of the oven before they look completely done. Let cool and they will be perfect.

The picture makes them look deceptively normal.

Chips Gone Wild

Normally I would be perfectly content making my favorite cookies, but I had a bunch of cookie ingredients leftover from baking Christmas cookies, so I decided to try this recipe and use up as many of those ingredients as possible. I altered the recipe for my on-hand ingredients, using Cocoa Pebbles in place of the crisp rice cereal (I bought Cocoa Pebbles for MSB’s birthday cookies, and they are a much better cookie ingredient than breakfast cereal). Instead of the butterscotch chips, I used chopped Andes mint candies. I didn’t have enough for an entire cup of Andes, so I added milk chocolate chips as well. I also used the white chips and semi-sweet chips called for in the recipe.

These are so good! They’re a little crispy and just full of chocolate. The Andes mints didn’t make them completely minty, but added a little complexity in that you get a bite of mint now and then while eating the cookie.

Food for Fun: Christmas Cookie Extravaganza

Before I forgot, go leave a comment on this post and MizFit will donate $0.10 to a domestic violence shelter in Austin, TX.

And now on to the main event, Christmas cookies! I recommend all of these recipes, which yielded wonderful cookies despite some of them being under-baked. Not a problem for me. 🙂

I did a lot of cookie baking last week. Because I was working late most of the week, I stuck to easy recipes so that I could make a good variety. And on Friday, I hauled the pounds of cookies off to Houston, where I gave them to MSB and three of my closest friends. I was kind this year and only gave cookies to people who are very much not trying to lose weight. I also mailed some to my grandparents, because they’re 85 and half their diet consists of sugary treats anyway. Because you know, they’re 85, so who cares?

First up, Walnut Date Snack Bars from my Pillsbury: Best of the Bake Off cookbook. Except I didn’t use dates, I used black currants and golden raisins. I already had those and dates are expensive. They were still wonderful. MSB liked them even though they contain strange chewy things.

Next, another Pillsbury: Best of the Bake Off recipe: the famous Peanut Blossoms. Cookie perfection since 1957.

I used a third recipe from Pillsbury: Best of the Bake Off. Like the person who posted the recipe, I used Andes mints for the Starlight Mint Surprise Cookies. I broke each Andes mint in half. These look plain, but they are addicting.

Next, a highly-rated cookie from Allrecipes, the Big Soft Ginger Cookie. They are exactly as they sound, except the recipe should be amended to Big Amazingly Soft Amazingly Gingery Cookie.

Still not done! All of these cookies are great, but there isn’t nearly enough chocolate involved. So, I made another highly-rated Allrecipes cookie, the Chocolate Truffle. These contain intense amounts of chocolate and melt in your mouth. 

What would a cookie-baking extravaganza be without a chocolate chip cookie? I chose Triple Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies because  they looked festive. I skipped the white chocolate drizzling, but they didn’t need it!