the great cookie bake-off

Pinterest.

It's responsible for so much of my behavior these days.

The good. The bad.

The highly caloric.


Pinboard claims of the "best chocolate chip cookie on the planet", and "you'll never make another cookie recipe....ever!" got my attention.

I've got several go-to cookie recipes in my arsenal, but the fam always seems to like good old chocolate chip the best.

What if I've been making sub-par chocolate chip cookies all these years?

Perish the thought.


So I gathered the ingredients for the recipe that kept catching my eye on Pinterest, and started about the twenty four hour plus process required to produce what I'd been led to believe could quite possibly be chocolate chip cookie perfection.

I followed the recipe step by step, word by word, with the exception of the bittersweet chocolate fèves, because I don't know what a fève is and I'm going to guess that whatever they are, they're not readily available in Montucky. I stuck with semi-sweet morsels, because that's just how we roll here on the farm.

I also made a batch of my tried and true and ever reliable Nestle Toll House cookies.

I felt a side-by-side comparison was in order.


It wasn't even a contest. By a wide margin, (after much sampling and milk sipping to cleanse our palates between cookies) we discovered that we are not a New York Times cookie kind of people.

We are Toll House people, through and through.

But I think, deep down, I knew that already.

I also knew that even if I was a New York Times cookie kind of person, the twenty four hour chill time required would probably be a deal breaker. We are instant cookie gratification people above all else.

So, still on the subject of cookies, I have to share my most recent and currently most favorite way to eat a cookie.

I visited my sister last month, and she introduced me to this fantastic creation - hot from the oven, baked cookie cups. With ice cream, no less.

I love ice cream.

The process is simple. The results are divine.

Grab some ramekins and some cookie dough, and have at it.


I had a surplus of cookie dough from the bake-off, so I froze it in cookie scoop sized balls. Each ramekin had two balls of thawed and then crumbled cookie dough.

Cookie cups will change your cookie world forever.


Since I had an obvious aqua color thing going on here, I called my aqua eyed neighbor Ceili to see if she felt like sitting in an aqua chair and eating cookies and ice cream out of a pretty aqua cup.

With an aqua spoon.


She did, so we had a cookies and ice cream party on my front porch.

That's a perfectly normal thing to do on a cold winter's day, isn't it?


It was windy and our eyes were watering, but we had a date with a cute striped straw and some fun convertible mittens, so we powered through.


Thank you, Ceili! You are fun! It's not just any girl who can smile and sip milk through a straw at the same time. You've got talent.

p.s. My sister and I spent a ridiculous amount of time coming up with cookie/ice cream combinations. Here are a few that are on my list to try.

Oatmeal Cookies and Cinnamon Ice Cream.
Peanut Butter Cookies and Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream. (That one might kill me.)
Brownies and Peppermint Ice Cream. My niece came up with this and said it's a winner.
Brownies and Coconut Ice Cream - my favorite sweet combination of all time.
Molasses Cookies and Pumpkin Ice Cream. Have you tried Dreyer's Pumpkin Ice Cream? Yum.
Cowboy Cookies and any kind of ice cream.

I'm sure there are many more combos that we haven't thought of....feel free to toss your ideas into the ring.

Have a wonderful Tuesday!