That time is here... the day I've been both dreaming about and dreading...BACK to SCHOOL!
I can't believe the whole summer has whirled away so quickly. In light of getting back in the swing of things...I thought I'd send the kids to school with some tasty tidbits from home. And what better way to do that than with home made chocolate chip cookies?
Here's where things got a little interesting....well for me anyway. Some of you may already do this. But it's new to me and only an afterthought because I don't own a cookie sheet. EGADS! I usually use a lasagne tin upside down, but tonight, I really didn't want to use my oven for 8 cookies every 15 minutes. So I used what I had to speed up the process....cupcakes tins.
This worked out much better than I even expected! To ensure that your cookies don't stick, simply pour about a tablespoon of vegetable oil in one of the muffin trays, and then with a cooking oil brush, keep dabbing into the oil and spread around to the rest of the tray. Be sure to coat the bottom and lower sides. Roll the dough into ball as per usual, then with slightly wet hands, flatten the dough. When the cookies were done their baking time, I let them cool and they popped out soooo easily!
Now of course these cookies came out a little thicker than a regular cookie, but they are all perfectly shaped the same and my boys didn't seem to mind at all. In fact, they thought the muffin tin cookies were "sick". They even thought that this would be a cool idea to do our brownie recipe in the muffin tins too, a homemade version of the '2 bite brownie'. Yummy, now we're talking!
Ina Garten {Barefoot Contessa} Chocolate Chunk Cookie
INGREDIENTS:
1/2 pound unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 extra large eggs at room temperature
2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts (optional, I left this out...we are a nut free school)
1 1/4 pounds semisweet chocolate chunks ( I used chocolate chips)
DIRECTIONS:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Cream the butter and two sugars until light and fluffy in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Add the vanilla, then the eggs, one at a time, and mix well. Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt and add to the butter with the mixer on low speed, mixing only until combined. Fold in the walnuts and chocolate chunks.
Drop the dough on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, using a 1 3/4 inch- diameter ice cream scoop or a rounded tablespoon. Dampen your hands and flatten the dough slightly. Bake for exactly 15 minutes (the cookies will seem underdone). Remove from the oven and let cool slightly on the pan, transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
* I used a convection oven and found that 13 minutes baking time was perfect.
