Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing, Baby

At my Relief Society cooking group meeting this month my neighbor, Linda, brought cookies. Good cookies! Chocolate with chocolate chip cookies dipped in white chocolate, or in other words, black and white cookies.

There were spicy notes to the aftertaste which left me intrigued. Provoked. Upon investigation I was surprised to find no nutmeg, no cinnamon in the ingredient list of the cookies! This cookie was so yummy, yet complex, that I could taste the afternotes of the white chocolate they were dipped in! Genius! (I'm not TRYING to sound like a foodie. I AM one...okay not really, but I wish I was)
Here’s the recipe, which I made for some of our neighbors who helped us with our sod last weekend:

Double-Rich Chocolate Cookies (Mrs. Fields recipe)
Submitted by Linda Drake

2 ½ c. all-purpose flour
½ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
½ c. unsweetened cocoa powder
1 c. dark brown sugar, packed
¾ c. white sugar
1 c. salted butter, softened
3 large eggs
2 tsp. pure vanilla
2 c. semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 300 º. In a medium bowl combine flour, soda, salt and cocoa powder. Mix well with a wire whisk and set aside. In a large bowl blend sugars with an electric mixer at medium speed. Add butter and beat to form a grainy paste. Scrape down sides of bowl, then add eggs and vanilla. Beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add the flour mixture and chocolate chips, and blend at low speed just until combined. Do not over mix. Drop dough by rounded tablespoons onto ungreased cookie sheets, 1 ½ inches apart. Bake for 21-23 minutes. Immediately transfer cookies with a spatula to a cool surface. (Option: dip cookies into melted white chocolate chips or almond bark for a triple chocolate treat!)

Unkempt Squiggles
My sister, Laura, was over while I was making these this weekend and for some reason she was really ticked off about a lot of elements of this recipe.

“20 minutes at 300 degrees! Ha! Turn it up to 350 and cook it for 10 minutes!”

(She had angry eyes as she said this)
Later, when we were dipping the cookies, it proved too much for her patience. She ended up plooping out huge wads of white chocolate onto the cookies.

Sad.

I was hoping to impress my neighbors with my culinary elegance. Our ploomps were accomplished by filling up a Ziploc sandwich bag with white chips, microwaving them (for some reason the white chips made my microwave make angry, chemically, electrocution sounds) and squirting the chocolate on top of the cookies.

After I finished the recipe I realized I needed a few more cookies than the doubled recipe had made. But I didn’t want to go to all the hassle of creaming the sugar and butter, etc. (Plus, I was out of baking cocoa)

So, I turned to my old standby: a box of chocolate cake, 2/3 c. of shortening and 2 eggs mixed with 2 c. chocolate chips. I baked the spooned out dough onto a cookie sheet and baked for 9 min. and then smooshed white chocolate onto them.

You know what? they were almost as good as the real thing (baby). Super chocolatey and yummy with lots of chocolate chips and the contrast of the mellow white chocolate. But with this batch, I missed out on the spicy nuance in the previous batches' cookies.

Next time I'm going for the real thing, baby. Even though it was extra work it was a better-flavored cookie that I appreciated a lot! Although, I literally ate at least 10 cookies from the first batch and then 10 more cookies from the second batch, so maybe having access to either cookie is a mistake (note sidebar where my fantasy baby weight-less wardrobe waits for me)

And now, who here is itching for more disco? I thought so. Alicia Bridges sings my favorite disco song of all time. But you may not have known that it only became my favorite AFTER I watched this music video on VH1. ENJOY!

And if that wasn't frightening enough for you, know that the following music video was in earnest. This is not supposed to be a joke, folks.