Chocolate Chip Cookies

Folks-
This is a standard chocolate chip cookie recipe with just a couple of subtle changes. Melting the butter, instead of using softened butter, is my dad's contribution. I also often use vanilla sugar thrown into the measuring cup before measuring out the white sugar. Tip: I use a 2-cup measuring cup most of the time. First I pack-in the brown sugar, then I finish by adding white sugar until it reaches the 1-1/2 Cup level. That gives you the most accurate measure of sugar for your cookies!

Ingredients
1 Cup (2 sticks) melted butter
3/4 Cup packed brown sugar
3/4 Cup granulated white sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract or 2 tsp vanilla sugar
2 large eggs
2-1/4 Cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cocoa powder
2 Cups chocolate chips
Optional: 1 Cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Beat together butter, sugars, and vanilla extract until creamy. Add eggs and beat well. Add all other ingredients except chocolate chips and nuts and mix well. Mix in chocolate chips
From into 1-2 inch balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 9-12 minutes. Allow to cool for 2 minutes before moving to a cooling rack.
Note: It's easy to use a mellon-baller to form these. They can be frozen for up to six months, and baked straight from the freezer.

Eleanor's Peanut Butter Cookies

If you ever wondered how I started cooking, or where I got my tendency to change the recipes of others, this is where both started. You see, this is my mom's Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe. She took the recipe from a '60's-era Betty Crocker Cookbook, and changed it by a single ingredient. The original recipe calls for a combination of butter and shortening, but she found that if you used more butter instead of the shortening (a 1 for 1 substitution) then the cookies came out softer, and more flavorful.
Here's my mom's variation of the Betty Crocker Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe:

1/2 Cup granulated sugar
1/2 Cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/2 Cup peanut butter
1/2 Cup softened butter
1 egg
1-1/4 Cup flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Mix together sugars, peanut butter, butter, and egg until smooth. Add all other ingredients and thoroughly mix them in. Cover and refrigerate for about 2 hours.
Set oven temperature for 350 degrees. Shape the dough into 1 to 1-1/4 inch balls by hand or using a melon-baller, placing them 3 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Press a checkerboard pattern into the top of each cookie with a fork. Bake 9-11 minutes until golden brown around the edges.
Remove from the cookie sheet and allow cookies to cool on a platter (they tend to fall apart if cooled on wire racks, unless supported by parchment paper.)
Optional: dip the fork into granulated (white or party-colored) sugar between pressing the checkerboard pattern into each cookie for an added decoration.
Tip: This recipe makes a lot of cookies, but you don't have to bake them all at once. The dough will keep in the refrigerator for a couple of days, or four to six months in the freezer. I like to make them into balls using a melon-baller, and then freeze them in a zip-seal freezer bag labeled with the expiration date. When I want fresh cookies, I put the frozen balls on a cookie sheet, press in the pattern, and bake them as directed.

Microwave Peanut Butter Cookies

Folks-
Every now and then I'll see a recipe in my feed that I have to try. About a month ago I saw one for "Deep Dish Single Serve Microwave Chocolate Chip Cookie." While my daughter and I agreed it was ok, it didn't hit a home run in my family. I decided to try modifying it into something we all liked, and after a week of tinkering, I finally had a Microwave Peanut Butter Cookie that is just as good as regular baked cookies, except you make them in small batches, and they take much less time, preparation, and no chilling the dough for several hours! Best of all, as long as you use mayo instead of egg or egg substitute, you can eat the dough raw (but I wouldn't store it for that.)

Microwave Peanut Butter Cookies

2 tsp butter melted

1-1/2 tbsp mayonnaise (or 1 egg yolk or 1/2 of an eggs worth of egg substitute)

1 tbsp peanut butter

2-1/2 tsp white sugar

1 tsp vanilla sugar (or 1 tsp sugar and 3 drops vanilla extract)

1 tbsp brown sugar

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/3 cup flour

Mix together butter, mayonnaise, and sugars. Mix in flour and baking powder. Form into 3-5 small balls, 1-2 tbsp in size. Place on a microwave safe plate. Use a fork to make a checkerboard pattern on the cookies, if desired. Microwave for 45-60 seconds. Allow to cool for at least a minute before eating.

A baking tip: Vanilla Sugar

Folks-
This post is going to be more a cooking tip than a recipe. I found out about this a couple of years ago. You can create a nearly perpetual flow of vanilla flavoring if you’re willing to go through a bit of work and wait a while, but considering the cost of real vanilla extract, it’s definitely worth it.

The flavoring is actually not a vanilla extract, it’s vanilla sugar. It will work well in virtually any recipe that you use that includes both vanilla and sugar. It may take some experimentation on your part to get the substitution correct, but the basic substitution is this:

Remove the same amount of sugar from the recipe as your recipe calls for vanilla (i.e. If the recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of vanilla, remove 1 teaspoon of sugar from the recipe) and include the same amount of vanilla sugar.

Now, how is this useful? Like I said, you can create a nearly endless supply of it. I’ll include a recipe that uses it soon.

There is one drawback to making vanilla sugar: Once prepared, you have to wait about a month before harvesting any of it.

Here’s how you do it:

You need one pound of sugar, one vanilla bean, and an airtight container. Slit the vanilla bean down it’s length, and then cut it into one inch pieces. Mix the pieces of vanilla bean into the sugar, and place it in the airtight container. Store it in a cool, dry place (like a pantry.) Now, wait one month.

Now, once the flavor/scent of the vanilla has infused the sugar, simply replace any vanilla sugar you use with regular sugar as you use it. There is no need to wait another month after replacing reasonable amounts of vanilla sugar (say, less than about a quarter cup.) But you should replace it pretty much as you use it. If you do this, your supply can last as much as 10 years. Not bad, huh?