Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookies

Two baking posts in a row. Crazy considering I don't bake much. The weather was awful yesterday and I started to get cabin fever and knew doing something in my kitchen would take that feeling away. After surveying my baking cabinet I saw that I had everything to make chocolate chip cookies, and everything is better with nuts, so why not throw those in too. I searched the web for a while looking at different cookie recipes and then figured I would just kind of wing it. I was planning on bringing them to work and letting Matt bring some to his co-workers. The worst that could happen was they wouldn't turn out and I would just have to toss them. It wouldn't be the first time our garbage can was full of inedible baked goods. The dozen muffins and pan of bars that I forgot to add sugar to came to mind but I baked on.
I'm actually very happy with the way they came out. I tend to like crunchy cookies over super soft and these were crunchy but a little soft on the inside. They didn't drop as much as I would have liked so I think I will flatten them down more next time before putting them in the oven.


Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookies
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup cane sugar
1/2 cup Sucanat
1/2 cup Earth Balance melted & cooled
1 tsp vanilla
1/2-3/4 cup unsweetened almond mil
1/2-3/4 cup vegan chocolate chips
1/2 cup pecans

-Melt Earth Balance and chill in the fridge until it is no longer warm. It works best if it is at room temperature.
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees
-In one bowl mix together flour, baking soda, & salt. Stir in chips and pecans.
-In another bowl mix the melted EB and sugars together. When thoroughly mixed add the vanilla ans almond milk add stir everything together.
-Pour the wet mix into the dry adding a little more liquid if needed. This will depend on how many chips & pecans you added.
- Spoon onto un-greased cookie sheets and push each cookie down a bit.
-Bake for 9-11 minutes.
*These cookies will crisp up after they come out of the oven so don't cook them too long or they may be too hard/crunchy for your liking
*One trick I learned was to rotate the cookie sheets every 4 minutes. This seems a bit tedious, but makes a huge difference. If your cooking in an older stove or using more than one rack in your oven, your cookies aren't all cooking at the same time.

I hope you like these as much as we did and feel free to be creative. Once you get confident with getting a good cookie/muffin/bar recipe down the hard part is over. These cookies would taste great with any kind of nuts, fancy chocolate chip flavors, peanut butter or some dried fruit. Happy baking!

1 comment:

Jenn said...

R this looks amazing! I added you to my readings so we can better stay in touch. I miss your face and your cooking. FCC bro down?