Weekend Work

I enjoyed spending some time catching up on everyone's blogs this weekend. Work has been very busy and it seems like we've had a lot of other commitments as well, but here is a little of what's going on in my little corner.

I'm almost done with a little spring sampler pillow that I'll be listing on this month's EWM.

I provided lunch and treats for a meeting today with one of my ministry teams and decided to try a new cookie recipe. My old standby recipe for chocolate chip cookies uses a combination of butter and Crisco. I don't like to think about actually eating Crisco in anything, but do like the resulting crispness it brings to cookies and pie crusts. This recipe from tendercrumb used only butter so I decided to give it a try:

Chocolate Chunk Cookies

 2 sticks unsalted butter

3/4 Cups granulated sugar

1 1/4 Cups light-brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 1/2 Cups plus 1 T pastry flour

1 1/2 Cup bread flour (I used unbleached all purpose)

1/2 T salt (I didn't use that much)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 T vanilla extract

1 lb bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (I used about 12 oz, a mixture of semisweet and bittersweet Ghiradelli)

Directions: 

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper; set aside.

- Cream together softened butter and sugars in large mixing bowl.

- Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. 

- In a separate bowl, mix together the flours, baking powder and baking soda. Add to liquid mixture along with vanilla and mix well.

- Stir in chocolate chunks.

- Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate several hours or overnight. This helps the cookies hold their shape and goodness knows we don't want any funky misshappen cookies! We'd have to eat all the mistakes.

- Roll cookie dough into uniform sized balls (mine were about 1.5 inches round) and place on prepared cookie sheets.

- Bake until lightly browned but still soft--about 13-15 minutes for the size that I made.

- Cool slightly on baking sheets before transferring to wire rack and cool completely. 

I definitely liked the chunks of chocolate and, not being a fan of really sweet things, liked the bite of the bittersweet chocolate. I liked that the cookies maintained their shape, but I have to admit I think I prefer the texture of my Crisco recipe cookies.

Signs of spring in the yard--the tulips I planted last fall are starting to break through (as well as the Autumn Joy sedum in the background). Unfortunately the rabbits seem to have noticed them as well so I'm going to go spread some dried blood around them as soon as I finish this post. Will that keep the squirrels away as well?

DH painted and installed a new wood floor in my Taj Mahal closet this weekend (the contractor asked him where he's going to keep his clothes). We are waiting for the cabinets to be completed so the entire master bathroom project should be done by the end of next week. Hooray!