December 11th, did I have a cookie for breakfast? You can bet your festive stockings I did! Last night I made the best impulsive cookies ever! I was going through the 12 Days of Cookies from Food Network and suddenly got the hankering to bake cookies. I originally wanted to give Jeff Mauro's Spumoni Cookies a try but the low cooking temperature deterred me. The last time I baked cookies at 325 degrees, they ended up extremely dry and crumbly-- not an ideal cookie texture. So, it's safe to say I did not go for the Spumoni Cookies. Instead, I went with an Old-fashioned Peanut Butter Cookie recipe sponsored by Nestle Toll House.
Now, if you know me, I rarely ever have everything I need for any sort of baking recipe. Luckily, this time, I had almost everything! The only thing I lacked was two sticks of butter; I only had one. So I cut the entire recipe in half. If you're a baker, you know that even cutting everything exactly in half, different results are given because, after all, baking is indeed a science. So, I halved the recipe-- all say for the egg. I just threw the whole thing in there. I also didn't make the dough balls a rounded tablespoon. They may have been closer to 2 1/2 tablespoons in size. It doesn't matter, they were ideal-sized cookies.
In addition to keeping to the whole egg, and making the ball sizes bigger, I had to adjust the cooking time (of course!). I started by doing the suggested 8-10 minutes then tapped the top of one of the cookies-- too mushy still. I let it cook for 4-6 minutes more. Keep an eye on them; check in two-minute intervals after 10 minutes. This depends on the size of your cookies.
Once they did their time in the oven, I let them sit on the pan for four minutes, then I scooped them off to dry on the cookie rack (a.k.a. my toaster oven rack that I placed on the counter).
One bite and these became Alex and my new go-to home-baked cookies (as long as we have actual butter in the fridge). They have a slight crisp on the edges, and soft buttery-chocolate goodness on the inside. A very nice treat to wake up to in the morning. Give it a try and let me know how it turns out. Maybe it'll make it onto your Holiday Cookie Gift Bag List!
Note of Changes (some not mentioned above):
Halved the recipe
Kept to whole egg
1 part dark chocolate chips, 1 part semi-sweet chocolate chips
Larger dough ball size
Generous sprinkle of granulated sugar instead of the weird cup-dipped indent thing noted in the recipe itself.
Cooking time ~15 minutes
