Blaze your own trail ... with cookies?

My senior year of college, I participated in the campus-wide stand-up comedy contest. That's right. I'm funny. Like it wasn't already obvious. Anyway, there was a long audition process to get to the finals... and ladies and gents let me inform you that I was the first female to ever make it to the live show. Yep. The student newspaper dubbed me a "trailblazer"... they even gave me a t-shirt from the show with that on the back... see?

Well, actually, I couldn't find the shirt anywhere to take a picture. Like, anywhere.

On an unrelated note... mom, can you check your laundry? :)

Anyway, so I have this awesome legacy of being a trailblazer. And I did it again. Today. In my own kitchen.

I have officially led the way for the boycotting of brown sugar in chocolate chip cookies. Yes, I know.

You're thinking, "But the back of the chocolate chips bag says use brown sugar! My cookies will EXPLODE if I don't use brown sugar!"

First of all, no. They won't.
Second of all... just calm down and keep reading.

Ok, so all of a sudden I just really wanted cookies. We don't keep sweets in the house, mostly due to the fact that my gluten allergy prohibits me from eating most of them. And the gluten free ones you can buy are icky. Like, super icky.

And, my supermodel of a husband wants to keep his physique.

So, I decided to make some cookies. Real cookies. I'm pretending like I'm not allergic to gluten because I'm still not 100% confident in my use of gluten free flours and baking. I've mastered the bread but, still experimenting with everything else.

So anyway, legit cookies. But, alas! No brown sugar was to be found in my cupboard! I had used the last of it for my banana-coconut caramel upside-down cake.

I did a little google-ing to see what to substitute, etc. And then I just sucked it up and went for it.

(Sorry for the lack of pictures... I completely forgot! Hopefully my stellar writing style will keep you interested enough...)

Alright, here we go.

What you need

• 2 sticks of butter, softened
• 3/4 C of sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla 
• 2 1/4 C of flour
• 1tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• Chocolate chips

First, make sure your butter is nice and soft. With this heat wave, I probably could have just stepped outside with them for ten seconds; instead, I opted to leave them on the counter for a little over an hour. 

Before you start, preheat your oven to 375*.

Cream the butter and sugar for about 30 seconds. Don't overdo it, though, because the longer it whips, the warmer the butter gets, and it starts to break down and separate. This is what usually leads to cookies spreading out too much and not giving you the color that you want. (Yep, I know a little bit of sciency stuff.)

Add the eggs and vanilla. Since I was feeling kind of rebellious, what with blowing off the brown sugar and everything, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. 

I didn't even measure the vanilla. I just dumped. I always over-vanilla anyway, because I think it's a flavor that should be celebrated. So, I guess it could have been more like 3 tsp. But if you're a measurer, start with 2 tsp. 

Combine all the dry ingredients, minus the chocolate chips, in a bowl and then add to the liquids. Let that get all nice and stirred together. I had to scrape down the sides of my bowl a few times. Be aware that this dough is light in color and texture. It's not going to look like the run-of-the-mill,  back of the bag cookie dough. Just a heads up :)

Next, get rid of those flappy arms by hand-mixing in all those chocolate chips! I always see people using a wooden spoon for this, but that makes me super uncomfortable... porous wood, raw eggs... you see where I'm going with this? So I opt for a plastic spoonula. 

Spoon the dough onto a cookie sheet and don't worry about putting them too close together. This dough doesn't spread out a whole lot so make sure you shape the dough how you want it to look. Pop those babies in your oven for about 9 minutes.

As soon as that timer dings, get those suckers outta there! Let them rest on the cookie sheet for a minute or so and then transfer them to a wire rack. And as soon as you're sure that you won't scald your tastebuds... please, do yourself a favor and try one. 

YUM

And, to make up for the lack of cookie pictures, here's one of  my 'niece' that I am puppy-sitting for the week. This was her giving me good-morning kisses.