Cookie Experiment

Hm. I feel like I've been in sort of a rut lately. I've been in a state of insecurity about my academics, strengths, and I guess life in general. I need to keep remembering what it is that defines me. My slump extended sorta to baking. I sat around for a while yesterday trying to figure out what I wanted to make. I wanted to make something cool. Yeah. But I didn't have anything out of the ordinary in my room. 

In my heart, I wanted chocolate chip cookies. Plain and simple. I don't like to brag, but I definitely have a knack for them. Junior year of high school, we had a cookie baking contest in my chemistry class, in which I won first and second place. For my efforts I was awarded a large, outdated periodic table, a Three Musketeers bar, and the respect and admiration of my peers. You can see this is quite the defining moment for me. 

Anyway. Honestly, I prefer the recipe on the back of the Nestle chocolate chip bag. Don't judge. They never, ever go wrong. Ever. My snobbish side kept me from making them (and perhaps a bit of fear that they wouldn't be as magical without the aid of the trusty KitchenAid mixer). So I found a different recipe, and some caramels of mysterious origin in my room, and chopped them up and threw them in the dough. I don't really eat caramels. I kinda have TMJ. And hypochondria. 

Also, my brown sugar was a giant chunk, so I beat it with the Divine Comedy until it submitted. 

Almost immediately, things started going wrong with the recipe. My hand mixer, for whatever reason, could not handle the dough. One of the beaters didn't seem to be spinning properly. Then, the ingredients called for one egg, but in the directions, it said add eggs. I added one...and realized that the 2 1/2 cups of flour would totally overpower the wet ingredients. So I added 1 1/2. With a sinking feeling in my heart, I popped the dough in the oven and waited the 10 minutes they were supposed to cook. Nothing happened. I poked a ball tentatively. Pretty raw. I left them a little while longer...I mean, why not? Next time I checked, they looked like cookies. Perfect cookies. Really delicious cookies. 

So I guess I still have my touch. 

Chocolate Chip Caramel Cookies

Adapted from Forever Now and Then

Ingredients

• ½ cup butter, softened
• ½ cup sugar
• ½ cup brown sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 egg
• 1 ½ cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ¼ tsp salt
• ½ cup caramel bits
• ½ cup chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Cream sugars and butter together. Add egg, vanilla, mix well.
3. Mix in flour, salt, baking soda.
4. Fold in chocolate chips and caramel.
5. Fold in caramel.
6. Drop by the tablespoon onto a lined cookie sheet. Bake for 10-20 min. Sorry that's a huge range.
7. Remove and eat. Immediately. I have no idea what these taste like cooled.