Step one was the usual creaming of butter, sugar, and brown sugar. Have I ever mentioned how much I love the smell of brown sugar? Seriously, the second I open the bag, I start to smile. It's pretty much like crack to me. Happy happy brown sugar. Yes, I know I'm crazy, moving on. Step two was adding the cocoa, extra-large egg, and vanilla extract. Buddy mentions the importance of using good cocoa in recipes. He specifies a couple brands I've never heard of but said that it's really where you should spend your money to get good quality. So, I decided to splurge and get Ghirardelli cocoa (which was the only option in the store besides Hershey's). I also now have extra-large eggs so I didn't even need to substitute for those. So far so good. There was a slight glitch with the vanilla today. I used up the last of one of those tiny bottles of vanilla extract so I had to open up the big bottle that I have. I'm not sure why but it didn't pour nicely. I was holding it upside down and it was barely drizzling out. It was very odd. And yes, I did remove the protective paper stuff from the top of the bottle. This may continue to be a mystery to be explored further at a later date.
Oh! I totally forgot to mention something super important! Santa brought me a KitchenAid mixer for Christmas!!! So this was my first chance to use my brand new, super shiny, totally awesome KitchenAid mixer. The MixMaster has been retired to the basement. It served me admirably these past few months but it was time for something more advanced for some more advanced baking. I was especially excited that the KitchenAid has a big whisk for whipping egg whites and a dough hook. The possibilities are endless!
Ok, geekout over. The next step was to add two tablespoons of whole milk. Yeah, I definitely don't have whole milk. I'm more of a skim milk sort of person. However, here is what Buddy has to say on the subject: "If you have a preference for low- or reduced-fat milk, I respect that, but I encourage you to use whole milk in your baking if at all possible. The final product will taste better, and that fat helps bind the ingredients." Duly noted. That does make some sense so maybe in the future I'll consider buying some whole milk for my baking. Any thoughts from my readers on that one? Is it like the difference between salted and unsalted butter where I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter?
Next step was adding the flour and baking powder which was uneventful. Finally, just added some semisweet chocolate chips and was ready to go with the baking. I was instructed to break the dough into small pieces and roll them in my hands to make meatball-size balls. Really? Meatball size? Big meatballs or little meatballs? What are non-Italians supposed to do with such a direction? Additionally, is it really necessary to roll them into balls so that my hands are a mess? Couldn't I have just used a spoon to measure out the cookies? So many questions! Now, the recipe was supposed to yield 24 cookies. I strongly disagreed with that assessment. I made 37 cookies instead. If I had made 24 cookies, they would have been gigantic and that would have been silly.
Bake until flat and hot. Wait, really? Bake until HOT? That is perhaps one of the stupidest directions I've ever read in a cookbook besides "Do not overbake." Of course they're going to be hot, they're in an oven! Also, the cookies did not entirely flatten out. Which makes me wonder how they would have cooked if I had them made them the prescribed size. Plus, I was instructed to "not leave in the oven for more than 15 minutes, no matter what." Cake Boss is a little bossy. Anywho, I tried one and I think they were actually a little bit underbaked (so I left the second batch in more than 15 minutes and screw the directions!). I'm going to declare that they're not quite as good as the Deep Dark Chocolate Fudge cookies. They're a bit more cakey and are pretty sweet whereas the Deep Dark cookies were more, well, deep and dark in flavor. As far as looks go, they look like Double Chocolate Chip cookies. See for yourself:
Critical Reception:
I haven't gotten a lot of feedback on the butter cookies. I still think they're delicious. Not that many people ate them. One person said that these were good but the butterscotch cookies were still the best cookies he has ever had. Ever. Which I consider to be a high compliment so happy!
A Disney Moment: Sleeping Beauty
Onward to the next group of 5 films! This grouping includes Sleeping Beauty, 101 Dalmatians, The Sword in the Stone, The Jungle Book, and The Aristocats. In a somewhat controversial decision, I will be ranking Sleeping Beauty as a 2/5. However, I will say that Sleeping Beauty ranks a 1/5 in beauty of animation. It really is a beautiful film. Here's some of my other random thoughts:
The fairies are not the brightest. Seriously, hide the princess through all of her birthday! Lie about when her birthday is so that you don't have to use magic to make a birthday cake! Don't let her wander off alone on her birthday! Anything! Yes, yes, I know that without these poor choices, we wouldn't have a movie but it still bugged me. My sister and I (but mostly my sister) were also bothered by the prince's disproportionate hands. Otherwise, the prince was much better animated than other princes but his hands were way too big for his tiny arms. I also didn't really care for the time that was spent on the kings of the two kingdoms chatting. Ok, those were the negatives.
There were many positives though. I like the personalities of the faires. I think that for the brief times that we see Aurora and the prince, they are good characters. The music is awesome. I like Once Upon a Dream, the other choral pieces were kind of forgettable, and the adaptation of Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty score fits well and is beautiful. Tchaikovsky is the shit. I could listen to his music all day. Let's see, what else? Oh, Maleficient is absolutely fantastic. She is terrifying to an epic proportion, and not just when she's a dragon either. I love her character design. She puts the evil queen in Snow White to shame in terms of pure evil. So overall, an excellent movie and very very close to a number one ranking but the couple of negatives brought it down just a hair.
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