Tiny Chocolate Chip Cookie Buttons

I mentioned here before that I will be graduating from college this April. A week ago today, I did. So now I'm officially unemployed!

Me with my grandmother and sister

I'm just so glad to be done with that part of my life. But I would be lying if I said that I won't miss going to school, hanging out with my friends and even the professors who have inspired me so much these past years. 

There were a lot of times when I just wanted to give up and shift majors but my friends would help me through it. It also helped that my professors were always encouraging us to do our best. There's this professor I have, Mr. A that always yells at us and sometimes swears at us to study harder. His way may not be the most pleasant or traditional but I know that he only wants us to be the best that we can be. 

Another professor that influenced me so much is Ms. D. She's the polar opposite of Mr. A. Instead of the yelling and the cursing, she's soft-spoken. But I can see that she also wants her students to excel and be great accountants and even become a CPA. Her passion for teaching is almost tangible that I found myself studying hard no matter how dull and difficult the subject matter is. As cliche as this may sound, I know that my college life will not be the same without them.

A week into my unemployment, I'm already bored out of my mind. I'm trying to study some Accounting subjects that I suck at in preparation for the board exams. Because I will be taking the CPA board exams this October! This thought never fails to make me nervous. It will be the biggest thing I will do so far. Starting this May I will be staying at a boarding house in Manila since commuting everyday for four hours would kill me for sure. Another thought that fills me with dread. I have never experienced living somewhere that's not the house of a relative. I'm not even sure if I'll have someone I know living with me there. Please wish luck for this awkward and sheltered girl. Maybe I can gain new friends by bringing baked goods? That works, right?

I got the idea for these cookies from 17&Baking but we're not big fans of peanut butter so I used Pioneer Woman's Spreads recipe since it also doesn't spread.

Tiny Chocolate Chip Cookie Buttons

Adapted from The Pioneer Woman and 17&Baking

1 cup brown sugar
1 cup margarine
1 egg
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
Granulated sugar, for rolling
Chocolate chips

Mix together brown sugar and margarine. Add egg and mix together. Add flour, salt, and vanilla, and mix together well.

Chill for an hour. After chilling, preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Using a 1/2 tsp, roll dough into balls. Roll in granulated sugar and place on ungreased baking sheets. Bake 7-9 minutes (8 is best for me) and remove from oven. Immediately press a chocolate chip into the center of each cookie. Let cookies cool a minute, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. [Note: the chocolate chip will be warm and gooey for some time, so be careful before stacking them.]

World Peace Cookies

*tap tap* Is this thing on? I'm baaack. Heh. After four months of not posting, I'm back with cookies. Not just any cookie, it's Dorie Greenspan's World Peace Cookies!

Since I've been missing for a such a long time, I feel like I should tell you what I've been up to:

-I made a promise to myself to make cakes for all my friends' birthdays since cakes are pretty much a requirement in any birthday. Bonus points if it's homemade. So far, three of them celebrated their birthdays and two of them have already appeared on this blog and the other one, I forgot to take pictures. I'll recreate it sometime and I'll post it here.

-I'm a senior now. Woot! Just one more year of exams and studying hard then I'll be taking the CPA board exams. Well, I'll be reviewing for six months first. But after that, board exams! :o

-Does anyone know how I could learn French? Other than go take a class. I don't think there's one near my area. Maybe books or websites? Thanks.

-I don't know what to say anymore. For four months, I didn't post anything and that's the only thing new that's happened. My life is riveting.

Anyway back to the cookies. I know this has been on the internets plenty of times and you probably don't need convincing to make these cookies or probably you have made them too. But I am in love with them. Deeply chocolate-y but I don't get sick even if I eat the whole batch. Not that that's ever happened before. Not me. I have amaaazing self-control.

World Peace Cookies

From Baking: From My Home to Yours, by Dorie Greenspan

Yield: About 36 cookies (I get 24 exactly, every time)

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 stick plus 3 tablespoons (11 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature

2/3 cup (packed) light brown sugar

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel or 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chips, or a generous 3/4 cup store-bought mini chocolate chips

Sift the flour, cocoa and baking soda together.

Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed until soft and creamy. Add both sugars, the salt and vanilla extract and beat for 2 minutes more.

Turn off the mixer. Pour in the flour, drape a kitchen towel over the stand mixer to protect yourself and your kitchen from flying flour and pulse the mixer at low speed about 5 times, a second or two each time. Take a peek — if there is still a lot of flour on the surface of the dough, pulse a couple of times more; if not, remove the towel. Continuing at low speed, mix for about 30 seconds more, just until the flour disappears into the dough — for the best texture, work the dough as little as possible once the flour is added, and don’t be concerned if the dough looks a little crumbly. Toss in the chocolate pieces and mix only to incorporate.

Turn the dough out onto a work surface, gather it together and divide it in half. Working with one half at a time, shape the dough into logs that are 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and refrigerate them for at least 3 hours. (The dough can be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months. If you’ve frozen the dough, you needn’t defrost it before baking — just slice the logs into cookies and bake the cookies 1 minute longer.)

GETTING READY TO BAKE:

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

Working with a sharp thin knife, slice the logs into rounds that are 1/2 inch thick. (The rounds are likely to crack as you’re cutting them — don’t be concerned, just squeeze the bits back onto each cookie.) Arrange the rounds on the baking sheets, leaving about 1 inch between them.

Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 12 minutes — they won’t look done, nor will they be firm, but that’s just the way they should be. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let the cookies rest until they are only just warm, at which point you can serve them or let them reach room temperature.

SERVING:

The cookies can be eaten when they are warm or at room temperature — I prefer them at room temperature, when the textural difference between the crumbly cookie and the chocolate bits is greatest — and are best suited to cold milk or hot coffee.

STORING:

Packed airtight, cookies will keep at room temperature for up to 3 days; they can be frozen for up to 2 months.

Brown Sugar Oatmeal Cookies

I love cookies. I love making them and I love eating them. When a batch is baking in the oven and I'm scooping cookies for the next, I always feel like I'm on a mission or something. I have to do it fast enough that when the cookies are finished baking the next batch is ready to go in. If not, I feel like everything in my life will go wrong. Does anyone else to this?

Anyway, among all the cookies I've baked, this is the favorite of my friends. They're always asking me to bring Oatmeal Cookies. It's chewy and soft plus all the brown sugar just makes it so tasty. Annnd if you make it with half whole wheat flour it's kinda healthy.

We're out of whole wheat flour and I used quick-cooking oats instead of rolled and the cookies are still wonderful. I made about 5 dozen cookies.

Brown Sugar Oatmeal Cookies

From Betty Crocker

Makes 4 1/2 dozen cookies

1 3/4 cups packed brown sugar

1 cup butter or margarine, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 eggs

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

3 cups old-fashioned oats

Heat oven to 350°F. In large bowl, beat brown sugar and butter with electric mixer on medium speed, scraping bowl occasionally, until light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla and eggs until well blended.

On low speed, beat in all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour and baking powder, scraping bowl occasionally, until well combined. Stir in oats.

On ungreased cookie sheets, drop dough by heaping tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart. Flatten cookies to about 1/2-inch thickness.

Bake 12 to 14 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool 1 minute; remove from cookie sheets to cooling racks.

Snickerdoodles

It was already noon and I was rushing for the cookies to cool. I woke up early to have enough time to bake, cool and pack the cookies. But in between reading the newspaper, eating breakfast, calling the theater and basically procrastinating, I ended up rushing to finish the cookies. Time management is just not my forte.

My siblings and I were going to watch Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. It was the very first Harry Potter movie I was going to watch so I was eager to watch it. I just finished reading the books last year. I know, I'm very late in joining the HP Bandwagon.

Fortunately, we managed to get to the theater in time. We bought our tickets and settled in our seats. Snickerdoodles were the only kind of cookie that I brought. I was planning to bake more but I ran out of time. I have to say, they weren't missed.

Together with the cookies we brought a liter of apple-flavored green tea. It's this bottled drink that's sweetened with honey and meant to be drank cold. Apple and cinnamon are definitely a good combination. The green tea was in my sister's bag and the cookies were in mine then we covered them with the rest of our stuff. I'm not sure if bringing food inside the theaters was allowed but I certainly did not want to pay for their overpriced food. We managed to smuggle it in without problems though. Yes, I'm a smuggler now! Unless bringing food is allowed then that just means that we went to all that trouble for nothing.

I love these cookies. They're so soft and full of cinnamon-y goodness. It just melts in my mouth when I bite into it. I've brought this to school once and my friends enjoyed it very much. I wasn't sure at first if they would like it since cinnamon is not a very common flavor here. It's mostly chocolate, vanilla and mocha.

My brother also brought some to school with him and two of his classmates wanted to buy these cookies. It's that good.

Snickerdoodles

From Lovin' The Oven

I baked my cookies for 11 minutes at 300F and these are smaller than the recipe states. I used a tablespoon of dough and made 28 cookies.

1/2 cup butter (1 stick), softened

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 cups flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

For rolling:

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugars with an electric mixer on high speed. Add the egg and vanilla and beat until smooth.

2. In another bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

3. Pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix well.

4. Preheat oven to 300 degrees while you let the dough rest for 30 to 60 minutes in the refrigerator. [I preheat the oven when I'm rolling the cookies.]

5. In a small bowl, combine the sugar with the cinnamon for the topping.

6. Take about 2 1/2 tablespoons of the dough and roll it into a ball. Roll this dough in the cinnamon/sugar mixture and press it onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Repeat for the remaining cookies.

7. Bake the cookies for 12 to 14 minutes and no more. The cookies may seem undercooked, but will continue to develop after they are removed from the oven. When the cookies have cooled they should be soft and chewy in the middle.

Makes 16 to 18 cookies.

I love this picture. It looks like the cookies are going to start speaking.