Halloween has never been a huge deal in our family, even when the kids were small. They dressed up for the first few years because really, they had no choice, but after that, their interest was pretty limited. For Layla and Aiden, Halloween has consisted of dressing up and joining the throng at Windward Mall; yet another thing that the pandemic has put a halt to. Neither of the kids are candy eaters but Aiden (and Layla's parents) are fond of cookies. I wasn't in the mood to deal with decorating cookies but I did want them to be a little fun--I decided to play with using cookie cutters on chocolate chip cookie dough.
Here's today's cast--the recipe called for mini chocolate chips, which I didn't have. I used the regular-sized ones and crossed my fingers that they wouldn't interfere with the shaping later on.
Butter was creamed with brown, and a bit of white, sugar.
The flour and salt were whisked together.
The recipe specified a room temperature egg yolk so I separated one and left it on the counter for a bit.
The nicely creamed mixture.
The yolk and vanilla were added next.
The dough is very short and a bit crumbly so I beat it a bit longer before incorporating the chips.
The dough needed to be chilled so I split it into two and sandwiched each half between parchment paper. I used my hands to flatten the dough to about 1/4" thickness. You can't use a rolling pin for this part; the chips really got in the way. Uh oh.
I left the dough sandwiched between the parchment, then put both sections onto a pan and left it in the fridge while I got the kids down for their naps.
The dough was very cold and when I used the cutters on them, it cracked in places. Fortunately it was easy to push the pieces back together.
I decided to put the two pieces I cut, along with the section of dough that I had not, into the oven for 9 minutes.
At the end of the bake time, I removed the sheet and cut additional shapes from the uncut dough. I put the sheet back into the oven and baked it for about 6-7 minutes longer, or until the edges started to turn golden.
It was interesting how differently the pieces baked--on the left are the cookies I cut after the dough had baked for a while; they shrank more and they didn't brown as much as the pieces I cut at the beginning of the bake.
For the second batch, I put the uncut dough in for 9 minutes and then cut the shapes out before returning them to the oven.
I left them in till they turned golden. I ate some of the little cut-off bits. Hey, a good cook always tastes her product!
It's a nice shortbread-y cookie...with chocolate! I think the kids will like it!
Happy Halloween!
Here's the promised link:
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