Unleashing the Chef in Me

Yesterday, my friend Jung decided to come over to my house completely out of the blue. My dad went out to work out, my mom and sister went out to shop, and I wasn’t doing anything in particular so it was a perfect day to hang out.
I was thinking of going out to the mall or cafe, but Jung had something completely unexpected in mind: he wanted to bake cookies. Why not?
*Please note: Jung and I had no idea how to bake cookies; we totally depended on a website which seemed fairly reliable.

Ingredients
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 2 large eggs,beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• If desired, 1 cup chopped pecans, or chopped walnuts

We first went to the nearest store to get some chocolate drops and vanilla extract. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find either one, so we decided to use M&Ms and forget about the vanilla extract.
Another thing – little did we know about softened butter. I decided softened butter meant melted butter…and panicked with Jung after microwaving the stick of butter and it came out like this:

According to our research, softened butter is also called “creaming the butter”, usually done with a rolling pin. Nevertheless, we just decided to use the melted butter.

Steps
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Mix sugar, brown sugar, butter, vanilla and eggs in a large bowl by hand.  Stir in flour, baking soda, and salt.  The dough will be very stiff.

This was basically what it  looked like when we poured all the ingredients in the bowl. I’m not sure if this was how it was supposed to look like, but I kind of lost my appetite at this point.

Now, the instructions clearly said to mix by hand, but Jung and I were chicken-hearted; we decided not to touch the substance in case of allergic reactions.

2. Stir in chocolate chips by hand.  You’ll need to use a sturdy wooden spoon for this and a bit of muscle.  You can add the pecans, or other nuts, at this time if desired.  Keep stirring and folding the chocolate chips and nuts into the dough until they are evenly dispersed.  (This makes sure you have enough chocolate in each cookie!!)

Until, that is, we got excited after throwing in the walnuts and M&Ms. (Please don’t ask why the dough is so yellow. We know it’s abnormal and don’t plan to find out how it got its color. Perhaps the butter was…never mind.)

3. Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet.  The chocolate chip cookies need to be this far apart because the dough spreads during cooking.  No one wants to cut the cookies apart after baking.

Apparently, the cookies bloat when you put them in the oven. Our piles of dough were a little too big to begin with…and sadly, we ended up cutting the cookies apart after baking.

4. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light brown.  You may even think that the chocolate chip cookies are underdone, but they will finish cooking through out of the oven.  If you leave them in too long, the cookies will be tough or crispy.  (My kids eat them anyway.  I always over cook at least one sheet because of the phone, a child wanting some attention or some other reason)

Sigh. We really should have taken it out after 10 minutes.

“Maybe 2 more minutes?”
“What about 5 more minutes?”
“Let’s just make it 7 more minutes.”
Sigh. Here we are, right in front of the oven watching a movie and enjoying M&Ms as our poor cookies were suntanning.

5. The centers will be soft.  Let cool completely then remove from cookie sheet.  I use a flat spatula to remove the cookies from the sheet.  It helps to get them off quickly.  If you try to remove the cookies while they are still warm, the chocolate chips are still very soft and this can cause a very big mess as well as messy looking cookies.

Sigh. No, the centers were not soft. They were as hard as rocks.

Sigh. No, the black stuff is not chocolate.

Obviously, the cooking wasn’t exactly successful, but we definitely had tons of fun and learned a number of valuable lessons. 🙂