Magical, Marvelous, Memorable Cookies
This is a fairly standard cookie method, with butter creamed and eggs and vanilla added next, your dry ingredients following behind, with a good amount of scraping down. Your mix ins come last. Our author tells us to form these and then fridge them but I don’t have room in my fridge for such falderal so I just chilled the dough right in the mixing bowl for 20 minutes. I used a small sized scoop to get these guys on the pan, which is faster than hand rolling.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 3/4 sticks (7 ounces) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup granola (or other cereal)
- 1/2 cup crushed salted pretzel pieces (or other salty snack food)
- 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, chopped chocolate candies, or a small bar of good dark chocolate, chopped into chunks
- 1/2 cup chopped pecans or other nuts, optional
Directions
- Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in medium bowl.
- In another bowl, beat butter and sugars at medium-low speed until just combined, about 20 seconds. Increase speed to medium and continue to beat until light and fluffy, about 1 minute longer. Scrape down bowl with rubber spatula. Add egg and vanilla and beat on medium-low until fully incorporated, about 30 seconds. Scrape down bowl again.
- (For this step you can use a wooden spoon or your mixer on slow speed.) Add flour mixture and mix until just incorporated and smooth. Gradually add granola, pretzels, chocolate and nuts, and mix until well incorporated, ensuring that no flour pockets remain and ingredients are evenly distributed. Restrain yourself from eating the raw cookie dough.
- Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper or aluminum foil.
- Scoop dough into balls, each about 1 1/2 tablespoons, then roll between palms into balls. Place cookies on prepared baking sheets, spacing them about 2 1/2 inches apart, 8-12 per sheet. Freeze at least 20 minutes, or refrigerate at least one hour before baking. (They will still spread a lot.)
- Bake one sheet at a time until cookies are deep golden brown, 13 to 16 minutes, rotating baking sheet halfway through. Let cool completely before gently moving cookies to wire rack. They will be fragile, especially on the edges.
- If cookies be the food of love, bake on!
