The Woman in Training: Compost Cookies

I really wanted to call this post "Why I Might Not Ever Make Plain Chocolate Chip Cookies Again," but in addition to the fact that it's quite a mouthful, I read that you should have blog post titles that draw people to your site from search engines, so I called it Compost Cookies. It would make me feel better, though if you'd try to keep in mind the real title of this post as you read on.

If you've read many of my blog posts, it's probably not surprising to you that I have a sweet tooth the size of Texas. When I was in college, I indulged my sweet tooth with gummi bears... so many gummi bears that I got sick... more than once. Actually, this happened with such regularity that my boyfriend at the time finally had to save me from myself by confiscating my 5 lb. Costco bag of gummi bears and dolling them back out to me a few at a time. That's not really a shining example of womanly-ness, and I chose to believe I've done a lot of growing since then....

...Except when it comes to chocolate chip cookies! These delicious morsels of refined sugar and white flour are pretty much the pinnacle of dessert perfection. They're so satisfyingly delicious that even now, in all my womanly glory, I always eat too many. However, my sugary world has been rocked by my coworker, who introduced me to Compost Cookies, which just may have dislodged good ol' chocolate chip cookies from their position as number one in my heart!

I'm super left-coast and have definitely never set foot in New York City, but apparently amongst all the trendy places frequented by the urban elite dwells Momofuku and their bakery, Milk Bar, where they create trendy, salty-sweet treats, including Compost Cookies. (They also created Crack Pie, but that's a little bit off topic. Let me just say I've made Crack Pie too and it did NOT change my life, like Compost Cookies did and I certainly wouldn't pay $44 for it.)

I found several different recipes for Compost Cookies on the internet, and they were all a little different. For my first go round with these delightfully eclectic cookies, I went with this recipe from the Amateur Gourmet, which for some inexplicable reason seemed most authentic, but I added a packet of Starbucks Via because it sounded good. They were good, very good, but whipping the butter and sugar for 10 minutes took a toll on my little hand mixer and waiting for the dough to refrigerate took too long for my impatient sweet tooth. I decided to make my normal chocolate chip cookie recipe but add in all the crazy extras that make Compost Cookies so very irresistible. I don't like to throw this word around, but the result was AWESOME! I'm pretty sure I've reached cookie nirvana! No seriously, these suckers are fantastic! They are so compulsively tastey that plain of chocolate chip cookies may never again fully satisfy me.

Just in case you're now dying to try my Compost Cookie recipe, Here it is...

3/4 cup Butter or Butter Flavored Crisco
1 1/4 cup Brown Sugar
2 Tbs. Milk
1 Tbs. Vanilla
1 Egg
Mix well.
Sift in:
1 3/4 cup flour
1 tsp. salt
3/4 tsp. baking soda
Once combined, add
1 1/2 cup savory ingredients (I use crushed pretzels and tortilla or potato chips)
1 1/2 cup sweet ingredients (I use 3/4 cup dark chocolate chips, 1/2 cup butterscotch chips and 1/4 cup coconut)
Bake at 375 degrees for 7-9 minutes, until just golden brown. Then (this is the magical key), as you pull the cookies from the oven, drop the pan a few times to knock them flat. Move to a cooling rack right away and try not to eat the whole 3 dozen cookies all at once!

(On a totally seperate note, I just got a new 50mm lens with a really big aperature. It's tough to get used to the fixed focal length, but look at that AMAZING depth of field!)