Magical Marvelous Memorable Cookies

Yeah, so it's been almost a month since my last post.  October was stupid busy.  Hubs and I went on a 2200 mile road trip from Alabama to Ohio to DC to the mountains of North Carolina and back home again.  All in the span of 10 days!  We visited family, ate, drank, drove, ate, did touristy things, drank, ate and drove some more.  I'll tell you all about that in the coming days.  When we got home we were faced with a whole lot of cray cray in the form of a guy interested in our house....that's been dragging on for the last three weeks.  I swear I'm going to write a book about all of the crazies we've come across when we sell this place.  There has only been one normal family walk through here.  The rest have come from other planets.  If it's ever over, I'll tell you all about that too.

And speaking of crazy.  These cookies are crazy delicious.  I found the recipe over at Food52.com and while I'm not enamored with the name, the cookies are out of this world.  They're really just a compost cookie that's salty and sweet, crunchy yet soft, chocolaty and addictive.  

If you're looking for a way to kick up your basic chocolate chip recipe, try this one.  And it totally adaptable to whatever you have in your pantry.  The recipe called for pretzel pieces, but since I hate pretzels, I used potato chips.  If you don't have any, leave them out and use your favorite cereal.  It's your cookie, you decide.

 

Just make them.  I guarantee you won't be able to eat just one.  Oh, and a little warning.  You're going to have to restrain yourself from eating all of the dough before you get them baked.  Just sayin.

Have y'all seen the great crop of Fall cookbooks?  I've kept our UPS girl extremely busy over the past couple of weeks!!  This is my haul so far and I can't wait to get started.  Are there any that I'm missing??

 Here's the cookie recipe:

Magical Marvelous Memorable Cookies

Food52

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 3/4 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup granola (or other cereal)
1/2 cup crushed salted pretzel pieces (or other salty snack food)
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, chopped chocolate candies, or a small bar of good dark chocolate, chopped into chunks
1/2 cup chopped pecans or other nuts, optional (If you don't use nuts, you may want to add more cereal, snacks or chocolate to compensate.)
You may want to add a little cinnamon, allspice, cardamom, or whatever you fancy.  I didn't .

Instructions
Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper or aluminum foil.

Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in medium bowl. In another bowl, beat butter and sugars at medium-low speed until just combined, about 20 seconds. Increase speed to medium and continue to beat until light and fluffy, about 1 minute longer. Scrape down bowl with rubber spatula. Add egg and vanilla and beat on medium-low until fully incorporated, about 30 seconds. Scrape down bowl again.

(For this step you can use a wooden spoon or your mixer on slow speed.) Add flour mixture and mix until just incorporated and smooth. Gradually add granola, pretzels, chocolate and nuts, and mix until well incorporated, ensuring that no flour pockets remain and ingredients are evenly distributed.

Scoop dough into balls, each about 1 1/2 tablespoons, then roll between palms into balls. Place cookies on prepared baking sheets, spacing them about 2 1/2 inches apart, 8-12 per sheet. Freeze at least 20 minutes, or refrigerate at least one hour before baking. (They will still spread a lot.) Bake one sheet at a time until cookies are deep golden brown, 13 to 16 minutes, rotating baking sheet halfway through. Let cool completely before gently moving cookies to wire rack. They will be fragile, especially on the edges.