pumpkin chocolate chip cookies

Nov 5, 2011

So, last night after teaching gymnastics for six hours, I remembered I needed to bring a dozen cookies to our ward’s Green and Gold Ball. Now, I could have just bought a package of 12 measly cookies for 98 cents. I saw a package of minty things at Winco for that very price. But, nooooo, I have to make things difficult for myself. I thought, “I don’t want to eat cookies with garbage ingredients and so I cannot in good conscience take some of those chemical-laden cookies to feed to other people.”

The problem is, I am not a baker and I am not a whip-something-up-at-moments-notice-person either. I have anxiety in two areas of my life…cooking and sewing…and it is almost incapacitating! I made a decision a few years ago to conquer these two areas and I am on the fifty year plan to do so.

I called up my mom and got some advice. Then I called Kat and got some more advice and then she sent me this recipe. I ran to Winco to get mini-chocolate chips, demerara raw sugar (never bought it before as I am a honey girl, but Kat swore I would want to use it), and allspice and then rushed home to make them.

I quickly decided to double the recipe since it called for 16 oz. of pumpkin and my can was 30 oz. Soon I had a mixer full of dough, the ovens preheating, and everyone getting ready for the ball…a lil’ bit of chaos!

Before the ball, I had time to cook about 2 dozen cookies. This morning I got up and made the rest…dozens and dozens of cookies later, I am done and they are cooling and being snatched up by children right and left. My plan was to freeze them and take a few to iFamily each week. I don’t know how many are going to make it into the freezer though!

Here is Katie’s recipe (from Kitchenstewardship.com) with what I did in parentheses:

Ingredients

2 cups butter or coconut oil or palm shortening (I used 2 C. butter and 2 C. coconut oil)
1 1/2 c. sucanat (2 C. demerara and 1 C. honey)
16 oz. can pumpkin or 2 c. pumpkin puree (30 oz. can pumpkin)
2 eggs (4 eggs)
2 tsp. vanilla ( 4 tsp. vanilla)
4 c. white whole wheat flour (8 C. of whole wheat flour)
2 tsp. baking powder (4 tsp. baking powder)
2 tsp. cinnamon (4 tsp. cinnamon)
1 tsp. baking soda (2 tsp. baking soda)
1 tsp.nutmeg (2 tsp. nutmeg)
½ tsp. allspice (1 tsp. allspice)
1 tsp. salt (2 tsp. salt)
2 c. chocolate chips or raisins (4 C. mini chocolate chips)
1 c. chopped nuts

Directions

Cream fat and sweetener. Add pumpkin, eggs and vanilla; beat well. Stir together flour and next 6 dry ingredients. Add to batter; mix well. Stir in choc chips and nuts. Drop rounded teaspoonfuls two inches apart on a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes.

Katie, the author of that recipe, nailed it…they are delicious! The aftertaste is even better than the first bite! I think I could eat them all day long.