Cookie Base #1

I love finding and creating base recipes.  Maybe it's a bit of laziness, but I do partly think of it as my sneaky little secret...to make one big batch of cookie dough and see how many different cookies I can make out of it without anyone realizing.  "Wow, Paige...you made ALL THESE in just a few hours?!"  Work smarter, not harder right? 

Years ago I came across this recipe for chocolate chip cookies.  Award Winning Chocolate Chip Cookies  As you can see from the reviews, it's a fantastic recipe.  However, I always have had a difficult time keeping the cookies from sticking together when plated or trayed. They really are great cookies, but just too soft.  I've tweaked it many times, and finally today I think I might of perfected it.  The best part of this recipe...it's an AMAZING base.  There are so many ways you can change this recipe up, from simply changing out the chips to something else (like I did today) to using different pudding mix combinations.  I've even left the chips out altogether and made them into sugar cookies (and sugar cookie bars with frosting.)

Cookie Base #1

1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 cup bread flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 (3.4 oz) pkg instant vanilla pudding mix
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In mixing bowl, mix together melted butter, brown sugar, white sugar, pudding mix, and vanilla. (If butter doesn't look like it's fully mixing together with the sugar, don't worry...it will be fine once the flour is added.) Blend in both flours and baking soda until mixed together. ** Add eggs until completely incorporated. At this time, stir in your "extras " (chocolate chips, nuts, dried fruit, etc etc.) 

**Note:  Normally eggs ARE added before flour.  In this case, however, I'm adding them at the end to give the dough time to cool down in case the melted butter was pretty hot.  (Most people don't like scrambled eggs in their cookies!!  ;) ) 

Your yield is really going to depend on how much you add of your "extras" and what size scoop you use. You can see from my picture of the raw dough balls that I used a pretty big scoop.  With this batch, I ended up with about 16 of those large size cookies. 

I didn't have any chocolate chips, so I raided the cupboards and found an unopened bag of mini peanut butter cups that I had hidden away.  After my cookie base was together, I mixed in about 3/4 of the bag of the peanut butter cups (with the mixer) so that some had been chopped up and blended into the dough.

 

 

   I thought they looked awfully plain, so I dipped them in some melted milk chocolate and chopped up the remaining peanut butter cups to sprinkle on. I tend to like to stripe cookies, so I finished them off with a dark chocolate drizzle.

 

 

 

 

  I think Thing #1 approves...