Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

I love love love love love these. These are my favorite cookies of all time and it's something that I've came up with when I found a Pumpkin Cookie recipe but it had walnuts, raisins and oatmeal. Ick. So I made these cookies which are soft, cakey and delish. I hope you give these a try, you'll be addicted.



Gracie will be joining me while I make these cookies as it's her dinner time and she likes eating near the kitchen, whereas Bella likes her dinner brought her location of the moment...



I start these cookies by putting in a bowl a cup of packed brown sugar, a cup of granulated sugar, an egg, some vanilla and cream it into a nice batter.



From there I add in a cup of melted butter (margarine) that I had on the stove. Then I mix that together.



Then what you need to get is a small can of pumpkin. Please don't use the large Libby cans because it's way to much, then you have to either make 2-3 batches of cookies which isn't really a bad thing, or you need to save it and then you'll forget about it and it'll go to waste. For this recipe you'll use the whole small can, this way nothing goes to waste. If you have an Aldi near you the small cans are 79 cents each.

Bargains. I love them.



So put all the pumpkin in the can into your bowl and mix it in until it becomes incorporated with the batter.



Now for the dry ingredients... Now you need to sift in three cups of flour, add in some cinnamon (I like more but not everyone is keen on it so do it to your taste) then add 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon baking soda.



When you mix it all together it'll be nice and thick, then it's time for the most important ingredient for the cookies....



Chocolate.

Add two cups of chocolate chips to the batter and mix them in.



Then put them on a baking sheet, I use a table spoon to measure them out.



Then bake them for 20 minutes in a 350 degree oven. And then, eat them, be them, enjoy them.

Here is the recipe!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 cup margarine
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 small can of pumpkin
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
cinnamon to taste
2 cups of chocolate chips

preheat oven for 350 bake for 20 - 25 minutes.

Chocolate Mocha Crinkles

These cookies I'm about to show you today are one of the ones I get requested the most but I probably make them the least.

My husband describes these as: "Fucking great."

And Stepher's Steve claims they are: "Motherfucking Delicious"

How could they not be? After all they are a Chocolate Mocha Crinkle, but when you see what goes into the cookie you'll have to trust me, they are that good.

You begin the cookie with:



1) 1 1/3 cup brown sugar
2) 1/2 cup olive oil (or whatever oil you have, it's the one I keep on hand)
3) 1/4 sour cream (please don't lose me here)
4) 1 egg.

Yeah. Sour Cream. Just trust me, it makes these cookies nice and soft, moist, and it brings out the chocolate in them. And I'm sure even if Steve knew what was in them, he'd still eat them...

Now...



You'll want to mix everything up together, when that's done you have to start measuring the dry ingredients.




Start out by sifting 1 3/4 cup flour into the bowl.

Why sift?

Sifting makes the flour lighter, and in my opinion makes a better baked good. I actually don't own a proper sifter because everyone I have breaks because I use them so much. Because of that I just use my mother's small strainer which I "borrowed" when I moved.

Sorry Mom, but you had two.



After that you need to add in 3/4 cup coco powder,



2 teaspoons of instant coffee, a teaspoon baking soda, 1/4 teaspoon salt and



1/8 of a teaspoon.... black pepper.

Just do it.

It's good. I promise.



When you mix it together you'll forget that you even put the pepper or the sour cream into it.

Then just like the ginger snap recipe you need to refrigerate this dough for at least 4 hours or more so it can set nicely.



How do you know this dough is ready? You can do the spoon test much like the ginger snap dough or you can just see it when you remove a chunk.



You then take a portion of the dough and roll it into a ball and then roll it in confectioners sugar (NOT granulated)



You can normally fit about 8 on a cookie sheet, I like to not make these cookies to big as I normally make most my cookies the size of my palm, I like these to be finished in 2 bites.



While they bake, the aroma may fill the house, so be prepared for you adoring public to fill the kitchen. (No. I don't give my cat chocolate. I'm a good kitty mom.)



When there done they will look like this. You can see the confectioners sugar stays on the top creating the crinkle effect while they bake.

Hope you enjoyed the post and if these cookies look super yummy, give them a shot and shoot me an email or comment to tell me how they went, and as always here is the recipe.

Chocolate Mocha Crinkles

1 1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup sour cream
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 3/4 cups flour (sifted!)
3/4 cup cocoa powder
2 teaspoon instant coffee
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper

Refrigerate dough for at least 4 hours. Roll into balls and roll in confectioners sugar. Bake at 350 for 11 minutes.

Chocolate Chunkers

One of my favorite things to cook are cookies. I like how I can mix up a dough and just bake them while I run around the apartment and do other things, hang up the laundry, dust bust (because I don't know how to turn on the vacuum) and other little things here and there. There are a few cookies that I make that I've made up on my own, this happens to be one of them.



And once again Gracie was there to watch the whole preceding. She likes cranberries which are in these cookies, she was really looking out for those, don't let the serious face fool you.

Today I felt a little to lazy to whip up the cookies so I pulled out my favorite kitchen tool:



My KitchenAide mixer was the first Christmas gift my husband bought for me when we were dating. Most women would have been angry, but I have always wanted one of these, and I love using it, but since my kitchen is so small it tends to be tucked away, but since I had made mashed potatoes the night before it was out and ready to be used!

Now to the cookies!

You start this recipe with a cup of melted margarine - that is two sticks.

I like to use Imperial Margarine.



It's really cheap at Aldi (you saw that coming) it's 77 cents for each pack of four, so I can bake more. I only use butter if the recipe really needs it, otherwise it's Imperial.

While your butter is melting in the pan (because if you're poor like me you don't have a microwave) mix together a cup of sugar and 3/4 of a cup of brown sugar firmly packed.



Then you'll start to smell the butter, hopefully you've melted it on low heat with the top on, if you did, it'll look like this:



I love melted butter. I wish I could bathe in it I love it so much, but I won't.

Anyway....

Now add the melted butter along with some vanilla 2 eggs and mix it up, or just turn it up to setting 3 on your mixer if you're lucky like me.

Once that is nicely incorporated sift 2 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon of baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 cup of chocolate powder into the bowl.



And mix it up and like magic you have a chocolate batter for your cookies.



The batter should look like this. Now if you just want a straight chocolate cookie, you can use this batter and bake it for 8-10 minutes at 375, just let the batter sit for about 5 minutes so it thickens, but if your like me, I like to put lots of crap in my cookies and this way if I eat one I get full, so I like to add things to these chocolate chunkers.

I like chocolate chips in chocolate cookies because I enjoy a good healthy chocolate overload. However here in the Tiny Ass Kitchen all ingredients have to go rigorous quality control to make sure they are up to our standards. Gracie is my quality control kitty.



I first add in about 1 cup of chocolate chips.



Then I put in a New Jersey export....



And if you didn't know, New Jersey is the nations leader in exporting cranberries next to Massachusetts. I also like dried fruit and this is one that I can get cheap at BJ's.

Anyway, add in two handfuls of cranberries into your mixture.



And then fold everything in together. Once that is one, let your dough sit for about 5 minutes so it can solidify just a little, and line two baking sheets with parchment paper, this way you can be lazy and not have to scrub your baking sheets and it makes a nicer cookie. Trust me.

Now take a table spoon and spoon out the mixture onto your baking sheets.



I like big cookies so I use a table spoon, if you want baby cookies do what you want, I'm rolling with the big kids.



Then you stick them in the oven for 10 minutes at 375 and enjoy the smell it'll put through your house and kitchen. When they are all done they'll look like this:



The recipe only makes about 18 cookies because of how big I make them so you can always double the recipe. If your interested in making them yourself, here is the directions:

2 sticks melted butter
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
vanilla
2 eggs
2 cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chocolate powder
1 cup chocolate chipd
2 handfulls of dried cranberries

Bake at 375 for 10 minutes.

Enjoy!