Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies

I really need to practice making cookies.

But seriously.
I have cupcakes and layer cakes down.  Brownies? Check.  Biscuits, scones?  Super easy.  I can even do pie crust.
But cookies?  They're the first thing most kids bake!  The one thing that their moms will let them help with!  The foolproof dessert that can only get screwed up by not setting a timer!
I follow every direction, measure with extreme precision, set painstakingly exact timers...
And I CANNOT nail them!

I want to say I can blame my oven.  I probably need an oven thermometer so I can test what temperature "350˚" actually is.  And maybe I need to play with temperatures as well as times.

I'm just saying, for me, thick golden cookies that don't spread like the dickens are apparently a lot to ask for.
In the picture are the prettiest three cookies of nearly 3 dozen.  They just kept spreading and browning really quickly!
Grr.

At least they taste good!

Pretty will come with time.

I hope.

For now, I will accept any cookie tips and tricks that you lovely people have to offer me, and will also sit back with one of my poor dilapidated tasty cookies.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies
adapted from these cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp unsulphured molasses
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (not instant or quick)
1-1/2 cups chocolate chips
scant 1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

Directions:
In the bowl of a stand mixer, or in a large bowl with a very sturdy hand mixer, cream together the butter and sugars until very light and fluffy - about 5 minutes.
In a separate bowl, combine the flours, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon, whisking together thoroughly until no clumps of baking soda remain.  Stir in the oats, raisins, and pecans.
Returning to the mixer, add the eggs to the butter and sugars one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Stir in the vanilla extract and the molasses.  Gradually add the flour and oat mixture on a low speed to the creamed butter mixture until well combined.
Chill the dough, covered, for a few hours or overnight - optional, but recommended.
To bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 350˚F.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, a silicone baking mat, or (in a pinch) foil sprayed lightly with cooking spray.  For giant cookies, (cause who doesn't like a giant cookie??) drop the dough in 1/4-cup sized* balls spaced evenly on the baking sheet.  Place in the preheated oven on a rack centered in the oven.  Midway through the baking time, rotate the baking sheet so the cookies bake evenly.  If necessary, flatten the domes of the cookies with a spatula.  Bake the cookies for 20-22 minutes, or until the tops are just starting to brown - don't overbake them!  You'll be sad.  Remove from the oven, cool completely on a wire rack, and enjoy!

The Oddest Cupcakes I've Ever Made

This post is not going to come with a recipe.

Why, you ask?

Well, cause I haven't quite done with it what I want to yet!  But...these things were just too interesting to keep to myself.

First, a little background:
My friend Jenni and I have been close since she moved into the house on the corner when we were six years old.  Now, we go to college in different states, so we don't get to see a whole lot of each other.  When we do get together, though, we have a blast!  And it almost always involves food.

Last time, we made cupcake lasagnas - miniature lasagnas made with wonton wrappers, which were super cute! - and Annie's cookies and cream cupcakes, which are now some of my favorites.  So this time, when Jen suggested a hang-out geared around cupcake making, I enthusiastically agreed.

She showed me the recipe as soon as we entered her kitchen, and I don't think I've ever been so intrigued:

These were Cardamom Apple White Cheddar Cupcakes with Butter Frosting.

I'll let you contemplate that for a bit.

Yes, there are both apples and cheese in these cupcakes.  They're entirely sweetened with Lyle's Golden Syrup - for those who've never had it, it's like a caramel version of corn syrup.  And the frosting?  It's not your typical frosting - it's essentially sweetened whipped butter!  The original recipe called for an entire pound of butter in the "frosting" and showed it piled up like ice cream on top of the cupcakes.  Yikes!!

We cut the amount of butter in half...we're nowhere near that decadent.
As much as we do loooove butter.

But despite my teensy lingering doubts, I tried one.
And died a little inside.
It was sweet, moist, and didn't taste like a cheese cupcake - which I was a bit worried about.  It had good flavor balance and spice, like the most interesting spice cake ever.  But to me, it was less of a cupcake and a bit more of a muffin, so I came up with a list of things to try for next time.

I want to reduce the oil in them - the original amount called for was a bit excessive and left the cakes a bit greasy.  I'd try reducing the amount of golden syrup in the cake itself too - that stuff is really sweet, so for muffin purposes it'd be a bit much.  More importantly, though, I want to make them as muffins, so I want to try a crumble.  Since the frosting is more of a compound butter than a buttercream, I want to mix it up as I did this time, then reshape it into sticks, wrap it up, and chill it.  Later, I'd cut that golden syrup butter into some flour, brown sugar, and cardamom to make a crumb topping that gets sprinkled over the tops of the muffins before they're baked.

So, thanks to Jenni's rather brilliant idea for a baking experiment, I leave you today with no recipe, but hopefully some curiosity!  I hope to be back later with the muffin version, and I promise I'll tell you how to make those ;)