Hello World,
First, to introduce myself, my name is also Michelle and I am a guess blogger on today's Shake It, Bake It blog. I have known Michelle since 6th grade when I moved to "Up North" Michigan! Today our friendship takes us to The Great Snow Day of 2011; Call it Snowmaggedon, SnOwMG, Snowcallpse, whatever, it turned out to be a great disappointment. See, us Northern Michigan girls expect a little more than a few inches of snow to slow us down. The snow came and turned out to be totally anticlimactic. We got a few inches and some drifting, but hardly worth shutting down the entire Metro-Detroit area. So, when Michelle called me this morning and told me to come over for some lunch I was ready to show the snow who was boss. Elated as could be, I quickly changed from my pajamas to my fanciest pair of sweats (black Columbia fleece pants with an old-school BRIGHT PINK Old Navy fleece) and hopped into my car to head on over to Michelle's... well, that didn't last long. I got about half way down my driveway and that was about as far as I could go. So, now stuck in the middle of the driveway-- blocking my neighbors car in-- I called our resident blogger Michelle and the conversation went like this:
Blogger Michelle: Ugh, you are stuck, aren't you.
Guest Blogger Michelle: Yeah, in my driveway.
Blogger Michelle: Maybe you should just stay in.
Guest Blogger Michelle: Welllll... I would, but I think I need Maurice (Blogger Michelle's husband) to come get me... I am kind of stuck.
With that Michelle and Maurice took on the snow and came over to help. After a short while, we got my car un-stuck and we were off to carpe diem. Michelle and I then had a lovely afternoon filled with Teen Mom 2 (talk about a hot mess!), Oprah (does it really have to come to an end?!) and Cup Cake Wars... which is the inspiration for today's post.
Michelle needs to study like no body's business, and I need to be entertained. So, I decided cookies were in order. Seemed like a win-win for everyone. Michelle could get her nursing-student on, I was busy as a little bee and everyone stuck inside this snow day could have a delightful treat. Maurice requested cookies, and thus the search for the perfect snow day cookie began. Chocolate seemed a must to warm our hearts, and so it was decided that it should be doubled, and thus we come to the double chocolate chip cookie.
The kitchen was well stocked with all the necessary ingredients to begin the cooking adventure. First step was simple, preheating the oven to 350. Then, I just needed to wisk together 1 cup of flour, 1/2 cup of cocoa, 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda, 1/4 teaspoon of baking power, and finally an 1/8 teaspoon of salt. That was done in a jiffy and put aside.
On to the wet ingredients... I combined a stick of butter (the recipe called for unsalted, all we had was salted-- but for all you aspiring bakers out there, that is just fine and dandy, just made our cookies a bit sweeter!) a 1/2 a cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of packed brown sugar. Now, my kitchen is not nearly as fancy as Michelle's, so when she gave me this one handed wisk-blender-machine-thing, I was a bit intimidated. It took some getting used to, but, finally, we got that blended. Now, if you try this at home, only blend this so that it is smooth and creamy-- but do not take it to fluffy. You will over beat your cookies, and that is just bad for business. To the butter-sugar mixture I then added 1 egg and a teaspoon of vanilla. Once that was mixed nicely I slowly added the flour mixture until it was blended (which, with the fancy blender thing, started off as a cocoa cloud in the kitchen, thank goodness I got that under control). This is about the point I realized that my cookie sheets were also preheating with the oven (OH NO!), so took those out and put them in the snow out in the front yard for cooling (thank you, snow day).
Now, comes the money step, we added a little more than a 1/2 cup of semi sweet chocolate chips! YUM! We must take a pause here, as the Wilson Household is a divided house: some are pro-walnuts, and some are anti-nuts. So, I made half of the cookies stopping at this step, putting them on a cookie sheet, about 2 inches apart. With the remaining mixture I added a little more than a 1/4 cup of walnuts (obviously if you want your entire batch of cookies to be walnut-rich, double that to a half of a cup!) and put those on a baking sheet about 2 inches apart.
Easy as pie (wow, that was a badly used pun)! Into the oven those bad boys went for 12-14 mins. I baked these cookies for 6 mins and then swapped them from the top rack to the bottom and the bottom to the top. Baked another 6 mins and PERFECTION! One does not want to over-bake the cookies because, let's be serious, who likes a hard double chocolate chip cookies?! (Answer: only crazy people).
It seems as though Maurice, Michelle, Davon (son) and Morgan (son's friend) all approved of the recipe! When asked what Davon thought, he said with as much enthusiasm as one might hope for from a 12 year old: "These are GOOD!" Accompanied with a little glass of skim milk, and I am not sure this snow day could get any better.
Well, world, that was a great time. Maybe I should start a blog... it could be my true calling in life.... something to ponder another day.
Although it is debatable if this was really a snow storm for the record books, it is a snow day that we will all remember! :) I hope you all reading this blog give this recipe a try on your next snow day! I can promise you will warm your heart and put a smile on your face.
Stay warm everyone.
Michelle
