Can I Apply For Betty Crocker's Job?

With Sean in Vegas this weekend, I had the entire condo to myself and it was fantastic. My weekend was equal parts productive and lazily-self-indulgent. One of the more productive things I did on Sunday was bake some cookies. The kids of some friends of ours sent us M&M minis from their Halloween booty and the M&M minis inspired me to bake something using them (the M&Ms, not the kiddies). It was a toss-up between cupcakes and cookies...and the cookies won out.

Chocolate chip cookies with M&M minis. I used the recipe that came on the back of the Tollhouse bag. Yes, I realized I failed to make creative leaps and bounds. But, after comparing the recipe on the back of the Tollhouse bag, to the recipe in my Betty Crocker book, to the recipe that came on the back of the flour bag - they were all basically the exact same recipe. So I went with the popular Tollhouse recipe. And I learned the lesson that the most popular choice isn't necessarily the best choice. The cookies came out average (I thought.) Nothing spectacular - no "holy cow, best cookies ever" moments. I've yet to make a great chocolate chip cookie. They always turn out flat and crispy. I dream of making a batch of big, chewy chocolate chip cookies. Alton Brown has a recipe that calls for cake flour - I may try that next.


Date-Nut Pinwheels. The recipe came from the Betty Crocker Cooky Book - the leading source for all of my cookie recipes. Considering it was the first time I made these cookies, they turned out really good. The date-nut filling was subtly sweet and the cookie itself had a great background taste of brown sugar. The cookies turned out a little chewy - but I don't know if they're suppose to be chewy or if the humidity in the air caused it. Either way - these were my favorite of the two.