Date Night: Cookie Bake-Off

Another stay home date night idea, and a DELICIOUS one at that!

Thad and I love to spend time in the kitchen together, making delicious food, but it's REALLY hard to do when the kids want attention.  So, we set out to make up some new delicious recipes after the girls were in bed!

To prepare for this, I took 11 of our favorite cookie recipes and found the average amount of each of the basic ingredients in a cookie.

Butter, Margarine, Shortening or Oil: 1/2 to 3/4 a cup
Brown Sugar: 1/2 to 1 cup
White Sugar: 1 cup
Eggs: 2 eggs
Vanilla: 1-2 tsp
Baking Soda: 1 tsp
Salt: 1/4 to 1/2 tsp
Dry Stuff (Flour, Oats, Cocoa Powder, Cinnamon, Coconut, etc): 3 to 3 1/2 cups

Using this as our base, we starting measuring and the bake-off was on!  The only rule was that you had to write down all the ingredients and amounts so that the cookies were reproducible later!

My dough (that's sweetened condensed milk turned into caramel next to it...which I didn't end up really using):

Thad's dough:

We got all scientific and tried different methods of greasing the pan and prepping the cookies just to find the best way to bake them.  

Finally, the cookies were done!

They both were delicious, though Thad's were voted the best by both of us because of the ridiculous amounts of chocolate.  

Here are the recipes in case you want them!

Ange's Super Cookie aka Chocolate Spice Cookie

1/2 cup of real butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 TBSP vanilla

4 tsp cinnamon

2 1/3 cup flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup chocolate chunks/chips

1/2 cup raisins

Soften butter.  Mix in sugars.  Beat in eggs, vanilla and cinnamon.  Add dry ingredients except for last 1/3 cup of flour.  Mix in as much of remaining flour as possible (should be a VERY stiff dough).  Add raisins and chocolate chips.  Roll into 1 inch balls and place on cookie sheet. Flatten with fork.  Bake at 375 degrees for 7-10 minutes.

Thad's Thunder Clouds

1/2 cup real butter

8 oz cream cheese

1/2 cup PB

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup cocoa

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 cup flour

2 tsp vanilla

1 cup chocolate chunks

1 cup chocolate chips

I think he mixed everything in that order, so...use your own judgment on the mixing.  Refrigerate or freeze dough until firm.  Roll into 1 inch balls and bake for 9-11 minutes at 350 degrees.  Drop pan onto counter when you remove them from the oven.

He obviously didn't roll them into balls, but after finding that they have a very fudgy, brownie-ish texture, we were thinking that would make them a lot more like a brownie cookie...

Enjoy your cookies! We sure did!