the battle of the cookies: the pumpkin edition

just as october began, the leaves started turning yellow and the air was all of a sudden chillier, my seasonal admiration of pumpkins arose again. in no time the interwebs was filled with all sorts of autumnish recipes that required pumpin puree, most of which came my way, accompanied by beautiful photos of the pastries. being the same old me, this was yet another band wagon i just had to hop on and ride along with the rest of the blogger crowd. this is how, on one gloomy saturday afternoon, i ended baking three different kinds of pumpkin cookies. because, you know, baking only one kind of cookie on long and lazy saturday afternoons is, apparently, not enough anymore.

the battle of the cookies: the choc chip edition

since i have moved home i started baking regularly again. naturally, the season being autumn also helps a lot: autumn and winter days always get me in the mood for baking, especially at weekends. on long, lazy saturday afternoons i tend to get this sudden craving to find a not-yet-tried-out recipe, get up from the computer, rush into the kitchen, and bake something truly mouthwatering.

Baking Time! - Chocolate-chip Cookies

Today I made chocolate chip cookies. It was the fifth or sixth time I have baked them: the first time was back in January, I think I even wrote about it here. That recipe was from a Hungarian chocolate-themed cookery book I borrowed from a friend of mine. That  recipe turned out to be a pretty good one, resulting yummy and crispy cookies with oozing chocolat chips in it. Yet, I wasn't completely happy with it, because it did not really resembe to the traditional American-style chocolate-chip cookies, or at least to the ones I bought and tried in England. These were too biscuit-like, too crunchy and crispy, not cookie-ish enough. (You know what I mean, right?) Nevertheless, I made them again later a few times, everyone loved it, but I thought that it wasn't the real thing.

A couple of weeks ago it popped into my mind to bake chocolate-chip cookies again, and this time I used the help of my good old friend, Google, to find the perfect recipe. This is what I decided to use this time. I have already tried a couple of recipes from All Recipes, they turned out pretty well, especially my (and everyone's) favorite Carrot Cake (Note to self: I must write a blog entry about that cake.) More than 38,000 (!) people had already saved this chocolate-chip cookie recipe,  and there were over 2,500 comments saying that this recipe is excellent and results wonderful cookies. So I really wasn't putting my money on a dark horse. I baked the cookies; it did, indeed, turn out pretty well, not perfect to my taste, though: they were way too sweet (after all it was an American recipe, right?), rather crispy, and a bit too dry as well. (Probably because I overbaked it.)

Anyway, today I gave the recipe another try, but this time I made a few changes here and there. So this is how my slightly altered recipe goes:

Ingredients: 

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2- 3/4 cup white sugar (depends on how sweet you like your cookies)

1 pack of Vanilla flavored sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon hot water

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup chopped hazelnuts/ peanuts/ walnuts (whichever you like the most)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to175 degrees C.
2. Cream together the butter, the white sugar and the Vanilla flavored sugar until smooth. Beat in the egg. Dissolve baking soda in hot water. Add to batter along with salt. Stir in flour, chocolate chips, and nuts. Drop by small spoonfuls onto ungreased pans.
3. Bake for about 10-12 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges are nicely browned. 

Notes: 

• If you have checked the recipe on All Recipes, you realize that I halved the ingredients, because I wanted to make only  half a portion. Yet, I ended up with about 40 (!) cookies, so the All Recipes porton is rather large, while the one I baked is the half of it. 
• Drop by REALLY small spoonfuls onto  the ungreased pans, otherwise you will end up with as large cookies as you palm. The baking soda does its work pretty well, after all.
• It may not seem that way, but 12 minutes of baking is, indeed, enough. You don't have to wait until the dough turns brown because then it gets too dry, crispy, and biscuit-like. It is enough if the dough is golden and the  edges are slightly crispy.
• Finally: Have fun baking it! It is really easy.:)

Visual Aid:)