Making cookies is about making tough decisions. What flavors, how thick, how crispy, how moist? There is no perfect cookie recipe because no one can agree on one.
I'm still searching for my perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe, and I hope I never find it. It drives me to keep experimenting with new recipes, and basically eating a lot more cookies.
What I have found is that the older I get, the more 'stuff' I want in my chocolate chip cookies. Oats, almonds, cinnamon...they are starting to look like breakfast bars. I like that. Gives me an excuse to eat cookies for breakfast.
In this recipe, I grounded up pieces of Ceylon cinnamon - or 'true cinnamon'. The ground cinnamon you buy off the grocery store shelf is actually cassia, which has a much more pungent taste that makes all of your desserts start to taste the same - like your eating different forms of Cinnabons.
Ceylon cinnamon has a sweet, delicate flavor perfect for cookies and cakes, where you want the cinnamon to play a supporting role, and not dominate the recipe.
One ingredient rarely tampered with in chocolate chip cookie recipes is the egg. Almost every recipe calls for one egg. It's automatic. But what does that egg do?
As a whole, an egg 'glues', emulsifies, the cookie together, and gives it a thicker, cake-like texture. When separated, the effects are much different. Egg whites create the cake-like texture and dry the cookie out, whereas the egg yolk is the real glue, and gives the cookie a richer taste and color, and a crispier texture.
I prefer a less sweet, but rich flavored cookie, so for this recipe, I cut down the sugar and added an egg yolk.
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| For good looking cookies - form the dough in a ball, twist it apart, and then squish the sides together |
The resulting taste was just what I was looking for - a good balance between the chocolate, oats, almonds, and cinnamon, and the additional egg yolk gave it that extra richness. However, the cookies were slightly crispier than I wanted.
Another perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe - just flawed enough to get me back in the kitchen to make more cookies!
Chocolate Chip Cookies with Cinnamon, Oats, and Almonds
by Season with Spice
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups of flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp of ground Ceylon cinnamon (if you use ground cassia, only add 1/2 tsp)
1/2 cup of raw sugar or brown sugar
1 cup butter (softened)
1 whole egg & 1 egg yolk (or just one egg for a more cake-like texture)
1 tsp of vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup of quick-cooking oats
1 cup of chocolate chips
1/2 cup of chopped almonds
No salt (Why add more when it's already in many of the other ingredients?)
The process:
1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. In a mortar, grind the Ceylon cinnamon pieces into a fine powder, and then transfer to a bowl and mix with flour and baking soda.
3. In a separate bowl, mix the softened butter and sugar, then mix in the vanilla and egg yolks, then mix in the dry ingredients from the other bowl.
4. Stir in the chocolate chips, oats, and almonds.
5. In whatever size you like, place each clump of dough onto a cookie sheet, at least a couple of inches apart. Bake until they look absolutely delicious (around 10-12 minutes).
by Season with Spice
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups of flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp of ground Ceylon cinnamon (if you use ground cassia, only add 1/2 tsp)
1/2 cup of raw sugar or brown sugar
1 cup butter (softened)
1 whole egg & 1 egg yolk (or just one egg for a more cake-like texture)
1 tsp of vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup of quick-cooking oats
1 cup of chocolate chips
1/2 cup of chopped almonds
No salt (Why add more when it's already in many of the other ingredients?)
The process:
1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. In a mortar, grind the Ceylon cinnamon pieces into a fine powder, and then transfer to a bowl and mix with flour and baking soda.
3. In a separate bowl, mix the softened butter and sugar, then mix in the vanilla and egg yolks, then mix in the dry ingredients from the other bowl.
4. Stir in the chocolate chips, oats, and almonds.
5. In whatever size you like, place each clump of dough onto a cookie sheet, at least a couple of inches apart. Bake until they look absolutely delicious (around 10-12 minutes).
