Baking Black and White Cookies

I know it has been a few weeks since I have made an entry, but with graduating from college and then moving the 400 miles back home….. Life has been a little hectic. I also have already found a job (Woo!!) working at a cider mill/winery/bistro. I will mostly be working in the kitchen but hopefully I will have the opportunity to do other things like working outside and maybe doing wine tastings. Another plus side note, my boyfriend’s parents gave me a hugely generous graduation gift of a Kitchen Aid Artisan mixer!!!! It is the Bay Leaf color and I love it so much. So of course, I had to find an excuse to use it!!

Buddy was MIA for most of this baking adventure because he is a bum. One of our other cats, Monty was more than happy to help out with the baking and he approved of my new mixer.

I have been wanting to make these cookies for a long time, probably close to a year since my mom got me a cook book called Easy Baking by Linda Collister. This book has simple recipes for more sophisticated desserts. I just haven’t made anything from it before now for lack of having quality ingredients. Anyway, I made these black and white cookies using my new mixer, they are pretty simple and really delicious. This yielded 28 cookies.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

1 stick unsalted butter at room temperature (I used salted butter and skipped the pinch of salt later on)

Scant ½ cup light brown sugar

1 large egg, beaten

Scant ½ cup self-rising flour (I just used all-purpose and these turned out fine)

½ teaspoon baking powder

A pinch of salt (skip if you use salted butter)

½ teaspoon real vanilla extract

1 ½ cups rolled oats

6 ½ oz. bittersweet chocolate-chopped into chunks

I used my mixer ( :-D ) and beat the butter until it was creamy and smooth, then add in the brown sugar and beat until the mixture is light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the egg and beat this mixture well. Sift in the flour, baking powder (and salt if you used unsalted butter). Add the vanilla extract and oats. Mix this all in together. Once this mixture is thoroughly mixed well, add in the chocolate.

I used bittersweet chocolate chips and I chopped them up roughly so there were still some chunks but also a lot of chocolate shavings.

You want to either have a greased cookie sheet, or a cookie sheet with a SilPat mat. I have a SilPat so I used that and didn’t have a problem with the cookies sticking. Put heaped teaspoons, spaced apart so the cookies can spread out a little, on the cookie sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes, I think 13 minutes worked out well for me.

After the cookies bake, let them sit on the sheet for a couple of minutes before transferring them to either a wire cooking rack or a paper towel on a table. My cookbook says to store them in an airtight container and that they will keep for up to a week or you can freeze them for up to a month.

These turned out quite yummy, they didn’t flatten out like they are pictured in my book, but I think they are just fine the way they are. Hopefully I will be baking more often now that I am settling in back at home. And Buddy showed up right at the end, after I had taken the last batch of cookies out of the oven.

Enjoy!

~Jenn