Crybaby Cookies

Several weeks ago I had a request from one of the 3 people who check in on my blog for the cookies that “make people cry like a baby they are so good.”

See, the deal is, it is as much the process as the ingredients. Some of the process I can include here, but a bit is just my own personal magic. I will try my best.

On Wednesday evening, after you have cleaned up the dinner mess, pull out your mixer. It is a good idea to listen to James Taylor in the back ground, but Anita Baker is a good second choice. Here are the ingredients:

Crybaby Cookies

2 c butter
2 c peanut butter, smooth or chunky
2 c sugar
2 c brown sugar
4 eggs
3 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
3 tsp vanilla
2 c oatmeal
4 c flour
1 2lb bag Guittard Real Milk Chocolate Chips

Place butter and peanut butter in mixer and turn mixer on to lowest setting. Add ingredients to mixer in the order listed, allowing the mixer to continue on low. Once the chips are just blended in, turn off mixer and place walnut size scoops on a heavy, light colored, ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 12 minutes or until they just start to turn brown. Do not over cook.

It is important that this be done in time to watch “The Middle”, so check TVGuide to see when it is on, or, do what I do and make sure you have a series recording. Once one dozen cookies have been baked, take a towel, the mixer bowl, small spoon and a cookie sheet and go sit on the couch in front of the tv. You have made a double batch, so this next step this will probably take the full time it takes you to watch one episode. Place the towel over your lap, place the bowl on the towel with the cookie sheet next to you. Using the spoon or your best guess, take chunks of dough the size of a walnut or a bit bigger, and roll the dough into balls and place them close together on the cookie sheet next to you. If the show is pre-recorded, it is a good idea to get an assistant to help fast forward through the commercials, so you don’t get cookie dough down in between the buttons on the remote. I haven't had much luck getting a new remote for free once they discover all the cookie dough.

Now, this is the important part, don’t get too caught up on Frankie’s mothering skills or the expression on Axel’s face. You need to closely inspect the quality of the milk chocolate chips. If there are any poorly formed chips, then you need to eat them, right then and there, with any dough attached of course. Quality control, people, quality control. Once you are done, immediately place the cookie sheet with the carefully formed and inspected cookie dough balls in the freezer overnight. The next day separate the frozen dough balls into two separate large baggies and leave in the freezer.

I usually only bake cookies one dozen at a time, as I tend to eat as many as I bake, and most of the real magic in the cookies is in having the chocolate chips all warm and melty. They bake up just fine without being thawed, so I just pop a dozen frozen dough balls on a pan and stick it in the oven the second it is hot enough, usually for the same 12 minutes as above. So far in-house testing has shown the dough is good for up to two weeks. It probably would be fine longer than that, it’s just that we usually eat them, baked or as is frozen, by the end of two weeks.

Oh, and always buy two bags of Guittard Real Milk Chocolate Chips, one per batch of cookies, one for eating straight out of the bag.