blue artichoke

At last! The qualifying round for the Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie (Plain) is over! I made the last two recipes yesterday.

Batch #20 "Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies"
Recipe from Southern Living. These are excellent cookies. I baked one sheet for the minimum time and the other at the maximum time. I prefer the shorter-cooking ones. Gentleman Caller prefers the longer-cooking ones. We both agree that these cookies deserve to go to the next round. The cookies were puffy and didn't spread out very much. Both batches had a bit of a crunch and a chewy inside. Good stuff, these cookies.

Batch #21 "Lauren's Chocolate Chip Cookies"
I don't know who Lauren is, but she makes an awful cookie. I have no idea how her recipe got published in Cooking Light. This recipe had all sorts of deviations from a traditional recipe. For example, no butter. What? Lauren uses canola oil, corn syrup and egg whites. She also uses half regular all-purpose flour and half whole wheat pastry flour. And, the real travesty, she uses grain-sweetened chocolate chips (Sunspire brand). Have you ever had these? They're gross. And they make the cookies gross. Seriously, I spit out the first one, still warm from the oven. Surprisingly, the cookies are a bit better the next day, but not so good that I would want to serve them to anyone. Including myself.

So, that wraps up the qualifying round. I'll have to tally the scores and I'll post the finalists tomorrow.

Dinner tonight: beef and wild rice soup with winter vegetables.