TWD: Chocolate Chip Cookies, Brownies, and Zero Photos

Yes, I'm still camera-less. The nice Nikon service tech person tells me that I'll get it back in 10-14 days, so it'll be another couple of weeks before my posts have pictures. Sadness, eh? By the way though, their service line is AWESOME. Seriously, I called, and within 2 minutes was not only talking to someone, they emailed me a link to the webpage for setting up and printing out a packing slip, told me what they believed the problem was, and reassured me that it should be an easy fix. Nice job, Nikon.

So lest you think I haven't been baking, I decided to visit and attempt to prevail upon your faith in my good character. I did bake both the brownies and cookies, I swear - there's just no photo proof. Okay, you can stop laughing now. I know I have no good character, so just trust me despite everything your brain is telling you. Please?

Tanya chose Rick Katz's Brownies for Julia last week, and while it took me until Wednesday to make them, I prevailed! I've been in a bit of a funk, so actually wanting to bake was a huge thing. There were some pretty significant changes though - I halved the butter (I know! I know!) and used half semisweet and half unsweetened chocolate. The latter change was because that's all I had, and the former? Well, let's just say I forgot to haul out 2 sticks of butter that morning and so I only had one stick softened when the baking urge hit. They baked up in 23 minutes in an 11"x7" "brownie" pan (somehow I have two of these???), and into the freezer they went. Even minus the butter, they were intensely fudgey and chocolatey - definitely a good recipe, although not my favorite.

This week we had Dorie's Best Chocolate Chip Cookies - I had made these in the espresso version a year or so ago, so knew what I wanted to do to make them more to my liking. Hers come out very thin and crispy on the edges, with a LOT of chocolate chunks. I, on the other hand, find that my favorite chocolate chip cookies have a prominent vanilla flavor, use a hefty amount of brown sugar, and are chewy through and through. With the blessing of a number of people in the P&Q, I halved the butter, flipped the proportions of white and brown sugar, halved the amount of chocolate chunks, and refrigerated them prior to baking. While they still don't beat my favorites (Nestle Tollhouse, how I love thee), they're still a wonderfully tasty chocolate chip cookie. So thank you to Kait for picking these - being able to do a redux on them is something I can't claim of many of Dorie's recipes!

So there you have it. An overly wordy and inordinately picture-less post on the last two weeks of TWD. I promise, we will have pictures again - just keep your fingers crossed for me!

Two Weeks Ago: Bittersweet Chocolate Mini Bundts
Next Week: Honey Wheat Cookies