Life is more exciting with dessert!

While I've been focusing on the lovely dinners and breads I've been making, I haven't been talking about the best part of dinner - Dessert! I firmly believe that one of the best parts of being an adult is being able to decide to have whatever you want as a meal, and sometimes that means being able to have dessert, just dessert, for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. It seems to be ok to do this for breakfast, with pancakes and french toast on every breakfast menu ever. It seems less common for lunch or dinner. In fact, it seems that dessert is usually part of dinner menus only, which I think is unfair. Dessert fits into every meal, and sometimes should be the meal. We haven't done that often, but we have done it on occasion while in quarantine, and if I'm honest, even when we're not. One of my favorite things to make is cookies. I do find it difficult to understand just how to get all of  the cookies each recipe promises from each batch. I read a recipe for chocolate chip cookies the other day that said it makes 50 cookies! Sure, if they're the size of a quarter. I prefer my cookies worthy of eating, which means they're likely closer to the size of a small saucer. I understand that preference is partly why I'm chubby as well.

One of my favorite things to make is chocolate chip cookies. They're easy, familiar, and oh so good when they come out of the oven. The chips are all gooey, the cookie itself is both crunch and squishy. Not a lot better than that. So, I've been making chocolate chip cookies while we're home. Sometimes the chips are wrapped up in a peanut butter dough, sometimes just a plain one. But one thing is sure - there's usually way more chips in there than the recipe calls for because I believe that the dough is only there to hold the chips together. If it's a plain chocolate chip cookie, there's usually nuts added in as well. I prefer walnuts because their slight bitterness offsets the sweet of the cookie perfectly. Here's my latest batch - as you can see, the chips are almost bursting from the batter, just as it should be.

My cookies usually turn out of all sizes, which means some are more chewy, some more crunchy due to the cooking time being the same. However, I've discovered a perfect way to get big cookies that are pretty uniform in size - a batter scoop. I know this may be old hat for some of you, but it's kind of a revelation for me. I've been using the 1/4 cup size, partly because I like big cookies, but partly because I put so many chips in there, smaller scoops just can't seem to hold all that goodness in!

I hope this little sweet note made your day a little sweeter as well. And I hope that wherever you are, you are safe, warm, and happy!