C is for Cookie

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Cookie Recipes

Now you can make your own homemade cookies. I don't know about the rest of you but I feel a great sense of accomplishment and pride after making cookies. It's an even better feeling when I make them from scratch.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 cup butter
• 1 large egg
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• if desired, 1 cup chopped pecans

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix sugar, brown sugar, butter and egg in a large bowl by hand. Stir in flour, baking soda, and salt. The dough will be very stiff. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light brown. The centers will be soft. Let cool for one minute then remove from cookie sheet and place on wire rack to finish cooling.

(from http://www.popularcookierecipes.com/Chocolatechip.html)

For other cookie recipes, I suggest searching the internet. There are many website and many recipes available, so go look.


What Do You Buy?

Cookies come in many different forms. You can buy all the whole ingredients to make them from scratch, buy a package of pre-measured ingredients and just add eggs and butter, buy premade dough and cut it up, buy premade dough that is already cut up and ready to bake, or buy almost any cookie you can think of already cooked and ready to eat.

Maybe you don't want freshly baked cookies and the packaged cookies are a good choice for you but if you are someone that wants fresh warm cookies, what do you do? Do you make it from scratch? Do you buy a package of premeasured ingredients and pretend you made them from scratch? Do you buy one of the premade doughs? For me, I consider buying the premade, cut up dough to be lazy. However it's not as lazy as microwaving already made cookies to make them warm. I know it happens and you know who you are!
I will admit that I hardly ever make cookies by scratch. I will buy the packages of the already measured ingredients and add eggs and butter. But these ingredients are not natural ingredients. They add a few more ingredients that your grandmother would never put in like corn starch, corn syrup, partially hydrogenated soybean, sodium aluminum phosphate, artificial color and artificial flavor. WHAT?!?! Why do you need artificial flavor or artificial color? Shouldn't the other ingredients make the cookie taste like a cookie and look like a cookie?

So is making cookies by scratch worth your time? If you care about all the added ingredients from packaged doughs and mixes, then its definitely worth the few extra minutes measuring out the ingredients to make the cookies. Actually the mix I have takes longer to cook than the recipe I am looking at for real homemade cookies.

I know some people consider price when buying cookies, mixes, and doughs. It a future post, I will compare the prices so you can also weigh that into your cookie buying decisions.

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Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Who Stole The Cookie From The Cookie Jar?

It was me! I stole them and I am not sorry.

This is a blog about cookies and how they make us feel. Does the smell of cookies straight from the oven bring you back to your childhood? Do you feel fat after eating a couple cookies? Does anyone make them by scratch anymore?

Throughout this blog, I will discuss different kinds of cookies, cultural significances, how people eat them, and why I think cookies are a great comfort food. I will also go into detail about different ways cookies can be made (premade dough, mixes, from scratch) and the way I make freshly baked cookies.