cookies!

I love cookies. Freshly baked, hot, gooey cookies. Since the first of the year I seem to have been on a quest to make the perfect cookie and improve upon it. I came upon this rather accidentally it seems. For many years I had given up on making any baked goods from scratch (why take the time when there is a perfectly good and convenient box or package for everything?) Well, my girls have been baking (real baking, not just pop the frozen fundraiser cookie dough off the paper and pop it into the oven kind of baking that I've been doing for the last 2 years or so) with their grandma. So they have been begging to bake (real bake) with me too. So this is how it all began, to spend time baking with my kiddos. While doing this I realized that homemade (real homemade) cookies taste a lot better raw AND cooked than the kind from the package, or the kind that are premade and frozen from the school fundraisers. MMMMMM, boy do they taste better :) So, began my quest to make the perfect chocolate chip/nut cookie. I started with the regular Betty Crocker recipe, then I started tweaking. First, I like a LOT of nuts in everything, so I don't just put a cup, I put a ton! Which caused a problem the first time I made them... there seemed to not be enough dough to hold together the choc chips and nuts within the dough, so it kept crumbling as I tried to scoop them up to put them on the cookie sheet.
So I got out my ice cream scooper (regular one, not the one people use for cookie dough with the release lever) and mashed the dough into the huge scoop , then whacked it onto the cookie sheet to try to get it to come out, but wound up scraping it out with my finger or a spoon most of the time. What it resulted in though was fabulous!!!!!! See the pictures... They were huge globs of cookies that were chunky and just divine! The center was a little softer/gooey since they were so thick it was hard to cook all the way through. They were the best though.
Thus began my quest, to make my gorgeous cookie, maybe just a little bit healthier (ok, so maybe not healthy, but at least decrease some of the unhealthiness from it). So, I took the 3/4 cup regular sugar it called for and I used only 1/4 cup regular white sugar, then 5 packets Truvia (0 calories), and 1/4 cup sugar in the raw (turbino sugar). HHMMMMM, I liked these. Dan said they were too sweet and he feels that the Truvia leaves an aftertaste, but I like them, and since I'm the cookie lover in the house, this recipe is really just for me, right? Probably. I really like the added crunch that the turbino sugar adds (it doesn't seem to disolve so u feel little crystals on your teeth when u bite into it) I like it, it seems old fashioned to me. Like b4 there were electric beaters and u did it by hand it probably wasn't was smooth as most things are today.

Anyway, these were good. Then I decided to play with the flour. I was going to use 2 cups reg, and 1/4 cup whole wheat (slowly work my way up to a higher percentage to see how it worked). Problem was I forgot to add the second cup of regular so I was one cup short on flour in this batch so the cookies were flat (I don't like flat cookies-taste good, but I like the look of chunky cookies). Turns out Dan loved these cookies the best-ha ha. And actually, since flour has 100 calories per 1/4 cup (I believe that was the breakdown I'm not near the kitchen right now to double check, but anyway...) this was probably the cookie with the fewest calories! They did taste good, but they lost their 'look' which I liked.

So back to the drawing board. I now decided instead of going halfway on the flour I was going ALL the way. 100% whole wheat flour (2.25cups) and while I was at it I decided to cut out all the white sugar and replace it with the turbino sugar (so I used 1/2 C turbino and 5 packets truvia). I did this because I really like the crunch of those crystals. But something went wrong. Since I changed 2 things at once I'm not sure who the culprit really is, but yet again, they were not chunky and full, they were flat and tasted more grainy. Which I guess makes sense because now they were whole (grain) wheat. Dan hates them. They aren't my favorite, but I rarely meet a fresh cookie I don't like (old cookies I can pass on), so I'm munching them all down (I also froze some and I have to admit they are pretty tasty frozen too). I do honestly think they are too sweet. Maybe cut out one packet of truvia and go back to 1/4 C of each regular and turbino sugar. Also, I hate to admit it but I need to probably not use more than 1/2 C of the 2.25 total cups of flour as whole wheat. Its just too 'grainy' for a non-oatmeal type cookie. You actually even get little pieces of whole wheat in your teeth when u eat them. oops.
Anyway, I'm hoping to modify once again using these changes and hopefully wind up with the perfect cookie (for me anyway). You have to admit they are beautiful aren't they?
I did wind up buying 2 sizes of those ice cream scoops with the release-WOW that is so much easier-even easier than using spoons. Great idea.




This picture show a variety I made one rainy day. Top row was white chocolate and pecan. Then I made some cranberry/white choc/pecan, and some pecan/milk choc/semi swt choc, and also some walnut/milk choc/semi swt choc. Yum Yum Yum. I DO love cookies, that's for sure!