Wednesday, July 23, 2008

I Made Them

I am new to the food blogging world. I'm not sure why it took me so long to catch on - I certainly love to eat food, love to cook food, and love to read about eating and cooking food. I really have no explanation but am continually amazed when I find people who have been blogging for three or four years. Where have I been?? Oh yeah, having children.

Anyway, as I read from various sites that I like (and there are always new ones to me), I notice certain trends that the food blogging world gets all excited about. One was the
no-knead bread that seemingly every food blogger worth their salt made and wrote about. The original article was written about two years ago, so I am a little late to bring out my yeast and share my no-kneading experience with you. I will make it some day because I really can't understand what all the fuss is about - I have a KitchenAid mixer that kneads dough for me.

The newest thing that people seem to be incredibly excited about is
this recipe for chocolate chip cookies. I usually ignore recipes for chocolate chip cookies because they all claim that what is in this recipe will totally change how you feel about chocolate chip cookies. I wonder - what could possibly be improved upon from the Tollhouse recipe? Is the 2 tablespoons more /less brown sugar going to alter my life and curse the many years that I have been leaving out/adding in that 2 tablespoons? I just don't think so.

This recipe, though, is pretty different. It calls for two different kinds of flour - neither of them all-purpose, and it also tells you to refrigerate the dough for at least 24 hours. It also doesn't include nuts which really made me sit up and notice. I don't like nuts in my cookies, but when I leave them out of the Tollhouse recipe - something just doesn't taste right. And when I saw how much salt it calls for and the fact that you sprinkle sea salt on them before you bake them, well, I had to make them. I love salt.


The verdict?
I don't know. I'm such a tease. I am desperately trying to lose the last of my baby weight (can you call it baby weight when your baby is 18 months old?), so I didn't try one. But Randy loved them and he says he doesn't like chocolate (which is a lie.) My neighbors loved them and I'll check with my clients. I was really impressed with how brown and lovely they looked when I took them out of the oven. Carmel-y. Yum. Yes, they were hard to resist. Why don't you make a batch and let me know what you think?

3 comments:

@BrandTallDeb said...

My 9-month-old baby weight will proudly remain just a little longer, thanks to these awesome cookies! It's true that not all chocolate chip cookies are the same. I like mine with enough salt that you can taste it, crisp, but not crunchy. These were delicious--but everything you make is delicious!

Jen said...

I want to try these cookies! But I'm wondering what others used for chocolate? The disks the recipe calls for is a bit pricey ($17 lb). That makes for one expensive cookie! Is it really worth it?

Dana Treat said...

True confession - I made them good old Nestle chocolate chips and I heard not one complaint. I think the chocolate they recommend will melt more into the cookies so you get a more uniform bite. Personally I love a chip-filled bite! This recipe calls for a high chocolate to cookie ratio - another reason to make them!