Cookie Dough Ballin?

Happy Waffle Wednesday!!! Best day of the week. After Saturday. And Sunday. And Friday. Of course.

Whatever, sometimes all it takes is a decadent breakfast to get me over the mid-week hump with a smile on my face.

The usual whole wheat protein waffle recipe base made sweeter with the addition of dates!

1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup unflavoured soy protein powder
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 stevia packet
1/2 cup egg whites
1/2 cup soy milk
5 small honey dates, chopped

Dipped in a mix of Trader Joe?s Sunflower Seed Butter + Sugar-Free Syrup. Chased down with a giant mug of coffee!

The decadence didn?t stop there though. At 9:30am, I got started on a batch of chocolate chip cookies.

Remember this cookie from San Francisco?

That would one of Annie the Baker?s chocolate chip cookies. Anyone who was at the Tasting Pavillion at the Foodbuzz Festival raved about these cookies. They tasted just like little balls of raw cookie dough. But without the salmonella.

It?s no surprise that a mass of food bloggers left that event swearing to make their own versions. Since then, ?dough balls? have been popping up all over the internets. Mama Pea created her own vegan version. While it took Diana seven batches for success.

I decided on trying out Diana?s recipe since I already had the ingredients on hand:

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 stick butter, softened/room-temp
1 tbsp sugar
1 egg (or flaxseed-egg)
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare baking sheets with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda.
In a medium bowl, mix sugars and butter till creamy. (I used a handheld mixer, but you could probably just use a whisk). Add egg and vanilla and mix till combined.
Mix wet into the dry. Note: it will appear there is not enough liquid for the amount of dry ingredients, but continue mixing. It will form into a dough, it will just be a firm dough. See tips above for combining. Careful to not overmix.
Gently fold chocolate chips into the dough, without overmixing.
Refrigerate dough for at least 20 minutes before using a small sorbet scoop to scoop out dough into small mounds. Roll each mound into a ball and spread evenly on a baking sheet, leaving roughly 2-3 inches between each ball.
Bake balls for 10-14 minutes, depending on how set you want your centers. If you use egg, and you?re paranoid like me, you can use a meat thermometer to ensure the centers of the balls are at least 160 degrees F, which many web sites say is the safe temp to eat eggs.
Let your dough balls rest on the baking sheet to cool at least 5-10 minutes.
Enjoy!

I messed up the recipe almost immediately by throwing in the brown sugar with the flour. This makes the sugar clump up. But I don?t see anything wrong with an extra sugary bite.

Then I half melted my butter in the microwave because it wasn?t at room temperature. I didn?t bother using an electric mixer and the butter was clumpy too. But who?s against an extra buttery bite?

The mix itself was very dry. A lot more dry then normal cookie batter. I assume this is so it will maintain that cute ball shape after baking.

Don?t forget the chocolate!! Key ingredient. Make sure it?s of good quality.

Then, let the batter chill in your Miley Cirus decorated fridge.

And make inappropriate phrases with your ?Romance Novel? magnets.

I let the dough chill for about 2 hours. Then rolled them into tablespoon shaped balls.

This is my favourite photo. There?s a Murphy nose in there!

After 12 minutes in my 350F oven, I deemed them baked!

Usually, I gobble up a sample immediately out of the oven. But I wanted to see if the texture really turned out like cookie dough. So I waited impatiently while they cooled.

I let the Jack Russell terrier take me out for a run. I tweeted. I baked a casserole.

Finally, the cookies were cool enough. The moment of truth?

Ohbaby. That?s one fiiiiiine looking chocolate chip cookie dough ball! Annie needn?t worry, us food bloggers won?t put her out of business. We just need a way to get through until next year?s Foodbuzz Festival, when I?ll be the first in line at her cookie booth. Special thanks to Diana for coming up with something to hold me over until then :)

 

Question of the Day: Okay blog friends. Give me your favourite cookie recipe. Write it out, link it up, let?s start a cookie collection for the holidays! I?ll sum them all up in a future post ? including my own favourite cookie recipe!