snowy days and minty cookies

Well it finally looks like winter in New England thanks to a snow storm on Wednesday! The hubby brought me home some Holiday Minty M&M's, they're great by themselves but are heavenly in these cookies and perfect on a cold winter day with some cocoa! I found this great cookie recipe in my moms cook book. Its from cooksillustrated.com you have to be a member to get they're recipes online. I think that's kind of lame, since its such a good one I'm going to try to copy and past it here :)

Makes 1 1/2 dozen 3-inch cookies. Published January 1, 1996.

These truly chewy chocolate chip cookies are delicious served warm from the oven or cooled. To ensure a chewy texture, leave the cookies on the cookie sheet to cool. You can substitute white, milk chocolate, or peanut butter chips for the semi- or bittersweet chips called for in the recipe. In addition to chips, you can flavor the dough with one cup of nuts, raisins, or shredded coconut.




Ingredients
2 1/8 cups bleached all-purpose flour (about 10 1/2 ounces)
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
12 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), melted and cooled slightly
1 cup brown sugar (light or dark), 7 ounces
1/2 cup granulated sugar (3 1/2 ounces)
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 - 2 cups chocolate chips or chunks (semi or bittersweet)

Instructions
1. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Adjust oven racks to upper- and lower-middle positions. Mix flour, salt, and baking soda together in medium bowl; set aside.

2. Either by hand or with electric mixer, mix butter and sugars until thoroughly blended. Mix in egg, yolk, and vanilla. Add dry ingredients; mix until just combined. Stir in chips.

3. Following illustrations below, form scant 1/4 cup dough into ball. Holding dough ball using fingertips of both hands, pull into two equal halves. Rotate halves ninety degrees and, with jagged surfaces exposed, join halves together at their base, again forming a single cookie, being careful not to smooth dough’s uneven surface. Place formed dough onto one of two parchment paper-lined 20-by-14-inch lipless cookie sheets, about nine dough balls per sheet. Smaller cookie sheets can be used, but fewer cookies can be baked at one time and baking time may need to be adjusted. (Dough can be refrigerated up to 2 days or frozen up to 1 month—shaped or not.)

4. Bake, reversing cookie sheets’ positions halfway through baking, until cookies are light golden brown and outer edges start to harden yet centers are still soft and puffy, 15 to 18 minutes (start checking at 13 minutes). (Frozen dough requires an extra 1 to 2 minutes baking time.) Cool cookies on cookie sheets. Serve or store in airtight container.



This is my new favorite cookie dough recipe! Just to let you know it still comes out really good if you make a few mistakes. Amber was having one of her days were she must be held at all time or she cries constantly...so I was a bit frazzled when I made them. I ended up not melting the butter first, I didn't bother with the fancy shapping, I cooked them on a stone and I put 1 egg and 1 egg white in instead of 1 egg and 1 yolk. They still came out amazing and to prove it I have no pictures of the cookies to show you! I'm going to try the recipe again and follow the directions a little better to see if they come out any different and I'll let you all know!!

Happy Holidays and Happy Baking to you all!!