Baker Bettie- Classic Recipes with a Twist

Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies with Only 5 Ingredients

Cookies equal comfort. Especially warm right out of the oven eating them straight off the cookie sheet. It just feels like warmth, love, and home.

I don’t think there is any secret by now that I have a certain ~~obsession~~ affection for cookies. Especially the kind mentioned above. I have this memory of visiting my aunt in Alabama when I was very young. I needed to take a bath and I was protesting. (I apparently hated being clean.) My aunt told me “if you take a bath I will have warm chocolate chip cookies for you when you get out…” Sold. That’s all it took. Bribery via warm chocolate chip cookies and I’m diving into the tub.

I think sometimes people who don’t bake very often do not realize that cookies can really be a simple thing to make. You really only need 5 ingredients to make fantastic chocolate chip cookies and I bet most of us already have them in our pantry!

#1: Butter: This can be salted or unsalted. Margarine or shortening. Filled with dairy or the vegan variety. Heck it can even be lard! But you need some type of solid fat. I prefer butter. It is what I usually have on hand. But the other things will work too.

#2: Sugar: Use granulated, light brown or dark brown or a mixture. White sugar is going to give your crispier cookies, brown sugar is going to give you chewier cookies.

#3: Egg: A large egg is preferable and you could definitely substitute with Ener-G egg replacer for a vegan option.

#4: Flour: All-purpose, self-rising, or bread. All of them work!

#5: Chocolate!: Chips or chunks. Milk, bittersweet, or Dark. I guess you could even do white, but don’t offer me any (who am I kidding, give me one!)

That’s it! 5 ingredients: Butter, sugar, egg, flour, chocolate. You don’t NEED vanilla, baking soda, baking powder, or salt. If you have the time and have all of those things on hand, then great. But this is that recipe for a quick, throw it together, I need cookies in my mouth in less than 15 minutes, kind of recipe. Go make them. It is time.

5 Ingredient Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

1 cup butter (salted, unsalted, vegan butter, margarine, shortening, lard)
1 cup sugar (granulated, light brown, or dark brown)
1 egg (or Ener-G egg replacer)
1 1/8 cup flour (all-purpose, self rising, or bread)
1 cup chocolate chips (any kind your prefer or have on hand)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350ºF.
Mix the butter and sugar together until completely combined.
Add the egg and mix until incorporated.
Stir in the flour then the chocolate chips until combined.
Bake at 350ºF until just lightly browned on the edges and middle still looks undercooked. About 7-9 minutes.

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Carrot Cake Pancakes with Cream Cheese Maple Syrup

I know Kansas isn’t the only place experiencing completely bonkers weather. I mean, really. We joke about the weather all the time. People are always saying things like: “That’s Kansas weather for you. You’ll get a sunburn today and it will be snowing tomorrow.” But that usually is an over-exaggeration. The temperature can change dramatically very quickly in Kansas, but not usually like this! I feel like mother nature is giving us all the middle finger and saying “You want to joke about me? I’ll give you something to joke about.”

Wednesday was beautiful. I literally sat outside on my balcony in shorts and a t-shirt at 7 am eating breakfast. Then I trounced around town in a sundress and sandals running errands. It was my first day off work before the big move and it was 80 degrees out! I remember thinking, “If I’m not careful I’m going to get burnt to a crisp today.” And one of my friends did get a pretty good sunburn that day… (Not that sunburning is good. It is absolutely not good. Wear sunscreen people! Wear protective covering! Protect your skin! SERIOUSLY! And stop laying in tanning beds!) Oh geez. Sorry. I have a big thing about protecting your skin. Ask my friend who got burned. She sent me a picture of herself in her wedding dress and before she even let me comment on how pretty it was she said “Don’t lecture me about my burn! I forgot sunscreen on my walk!” Haha. She knows me too well. But seriously, she’s gorgeous!

Ok, what were we talking about? Oh yes, the weather. So to recap, Wednesday was freaking beautiful. Yesterday? Not so much. It was snowing and icing and disgusting! Those sandals and sundress stayed home yesterday (not that I ever wear the same outfit 2 days in a row…~~idothatallthetime~~) But I had to pull out my boots and coat. I was grumpy. And lazier than the day before.

Then I watched the news (how depressing) and I kicked myself in the ass for letting such a stupid thing as the weather get me in a bad mood. I need to change my perspective. I know I do. I have so much to be thankful for and I am thankful. I am very thankful that I have so many clothing options to change with the weather. I am thankful for my home that I was able to use air conditioning in on Wednesday and the heater yesterday. I am thankful that it was just a little rain and snow and that it wasn’t something worse, like a tornado. Just so many things. Thanks is the theme today. I’m going to cram it down my own throat!

Let’s talk about these pancakes. I mean… Just think about it. It’s carrot cake. For breakfast! Well, it isn’t actual carrot cake. But you get the point. Just do one important thing if you do make these (or any pancakes for that matter). It is very important. DON’T FORGET TO PUT THE BAKING POWDER IN THE BATTER! You see how flat mine are? Yeah. I forgot the baking powder. I know. BIG mistake. Huge. Baking powder is what makes them light and fluffy. You know how all those beautiful bubbles start forming when you are cooking pancakes. That is the baking powder reacting! Don’t forget to do it! Got it? But really, if you do forget it, eat them anyway. I did. Don’t waist food just because you are an idiot about the baking powder. But just don’t forget it, okay?

And THANK YOU for checking out my blog. I really am so appreciative of all my readers and their support. You guys are amazing and I am thankful for each and every one of you. This blog brings me so much joy and you are the biggest part of that!

Carrot Cake Pancakes with Cream Cheese Maple Syrup

Ingredients

for the pancakes

1/4 sugar
2 1/2 cups cake flour (you can substitute all-purpose flour here but reduce the amount to 2 1/4 cups. The cakes won’t be quite as light and fluffy)
1 tsp salt
1 TBSP baking powder
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
3 eggs
2 cups buttermilk (or soured milk)
1 tbsp pure vanilla extract
4 tbsp melted butter
2 cups finely grated carrot

for the syrup

4 oz cream cheese, softened
maple syrup

Instructions

for the pancakes

In a large bowl whisk together sugar, cake flour, salt, pumpkin pie spice, and baking powder.
Make a well in the center of the dry mixture.
In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs until fluffy.
Beat the buttermilk, vanilla extract, and melted butter into the eggs.
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and gently mix just until combined. (The batter will be lumpy. Do not over mix to a smooth consistency.)
Gently fold in the carrots.
Let the batter sit at room temperature while making the syrup.
Fry the cakes on a lightly greased and very hot griddle.
When bubbles appear on the surface of the cakes, flip them before the bubbles burst.

for the syrup

In a small bowl stir the cream cheese until smooth and drizzle in the maple syrup until you get the desired consistency. Use less syrup for a more thick frosting like topping, and use more syrup for more of a glaze.
Drizzle over hot pancakes.

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Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza

Today I am really excited because I have a guest post from my most favoritest person in the whole world: my husband, aka Mr. Baker Bettie. I have hinted around for ages at him doing a guest post. He always says he can’t cook, but that is a lie. He doesn’t cook often, but everything he has cooked for me has been delicious.

He decided last weekend that we needed to make a deep dish pizza and I told him that would it be perfect for a guest post. He immediately agreed, which was a bit shocking. He also insisted that if he was going to do a guest post he had to cook everything completely on his own and I couldn’t help him. So I stepped back and let him cook away. My husband is too humble to agree with this, but he is absolutely hilarious. I was cracking up listening to him in the kitchen. Here are a few of my favorite quotes that came out of the kitchen that day:

“F***! I already made a rookie mistake. I need to be using a sauté pan not a sauce pan!”

“We don’t have any fennel or red pepper flakes?! Oh god, I’m going to have to improvise.”

“I’m trying to do it the professional chef way. You know? You just shake the pan back and forth.”

Talking to the sauce: “Don’t do that! Don’t do that!”

“Boom. I just made a pizza sauce from scratch… basically.”

And now, without further ado, Mr. Baker Bettie’s guest post…

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Baked Cinnamon Sugar Mini Donuts

I feel like I need to apologize for my sporadic posting lately. I was beginning to worry that I was losting motivation, losing inspiration, or just plain losing *it*. But I am realizing that none of those things are true. My mind is just preoccupied with other big things going on in my life. Just lots of things, all happening very close together. Exciting, scary, sad, joyous, overwhelming things.

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{ 32 comments }

Lemon Goat Cheese Tea Cookies

Life is going full speed ahead right now. It doesn’t matter if I’m ready or not. It is happening. And while it’s exciting, and stressful, and emotional, it has been hard to find time for the thing that calms me: baking. I will soon have lots of time to devote to it. But currently, I’m struggling.

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Ten Unique Cookie Recipes That Will Knock Your Socks Off

Life has been just a liiiiiitle hectic in my neck of the woods lately. Cooking and baking has sadly been near impossible and I am getting the itch, bad! I will soon have much more time to devote to my love, but until then let’s review some amazing cookie recipes, shall we? Yes. Let’s.

I hope you have all been working hard on your entries for Cookie Wars 2013! The deadline (ahem, May 1st) is fast approaching! Get those baking booties in gear! To give you a little inspiration, here are 10 unique cookie recipes that will knock your socks off!

#10: Salted Caramel Skillet Cookie (vegan and gluten free)

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Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal Brownie Bites (wheat free, vegan)

I have this pattern in my life involving my hair. I have done it over and over again, I can’t even remember how many times. I see someone with really awesome bangs that look fantastic on them and then I decide, “Hey! I want bangs!” So I get bangs. And immediately I hate them. Immediately I regret ever having let the thought of wanting bangs enter my head. Then I’m stuck with them for a ridiculous amount of time, because if you’ve ever had bangs you know how freaking long it takes to grow them back out. I’m sure you have guessed by now that I just got bangs… again. And again, I hate them. I’m kicking myself for thinking that this time it will be different. That I didn’t learn after last time.

In my job we do a lot of talking and teaching about radical acceptance. The letting go of fighting reality and accepting the situation for what it is. It is so important in big life struggles and I guess in little ones too. Kicking myself for chopping off my bangs is not going to grow them out any faster. So I guess my only choice is to embrace them and rock them. At least for the next 6 months or so until I can get these babies grown out. It’s the little things in life that sometimes remind me of big lessons. I preach radical acceptance but need to take my own words to heart. Not just with my bangs, but with big things going on in my life.

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Creamy Cauliflower and Basil “Alfredo” Rigatoni (vegan)

Throwing big handfuls of salty smoked almonds in a container of chocolate soy ice cream and eating it right out of the tub. Embarrassing or brillant? I’m going to go ahead and pat myself on the back and call that one brillant, because it is insanely good.

But I’ll admit that even though this behavior is absolutely brilliant, I did feel a bit embarrassed after eating half of the ice cream and most of the almonds doing this. I felt like I needed to make something super healthy and brillant and not embarrassing for dinner. Because eating vegetables totally reverses all embarrassing eating habits right? Just humor me.

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Cinnamon Roll French Toast

Within the past few years I have developed this weird physical reaction to pain. I start to lose all control over my body. Tunnel vision sets in and that feeling you get right before passing out overcomes me. When I stub my toe, when I do a difficult workout, when my cat scratches me. It can be the smallest little pain that will trigger me. And not just to experiencing pain but also being around someone else who is in pain or just hearing about something painful. I have only gotten to point of actually passing out a handful of times, but still, it makes me feel like a real wimp.

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How To Create Your Own Original Cookie Recipe and Cookie Science

I am the kind of person who is fascinated with the science of baking. Each time I try a new recipe, I try to learn about each element in the ingredient list and how they are affecting the final product. Some ingredients are important to the structure, some add sweetness, some cause the baked good to rise, some add moisture, and some are mostly just for flavoring. My fascination with this has helped me learn how to create my own recipes from scratch. They don’t always work exactly they way I want, but with a little knowledge of the science of baking you can get pretty close and then tweak things from there.

Since ~~The Cookie Wars Recipe Contest~~ is currently up and running and ~~accepting entries~~, I thought this would be a good time to share with you my process when creating an original cookie recipe so that this task might not seem so daunting. This process isn’t fool proof and you may not get your exact desired results on the first try, but mistakes are how we learn! I hope this helps you have more confidence in creating your own original recipe and I can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with!

(This is by no means and all inclusive guide to creating a cookie recipe. There are endless ways to approach this. This is just what works well for me and the way I most frequently approach this process.)

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