This recipe had its origins from a generic chocolate chip cookie. We used confectioner's sugar (powdered) instead of granulated white sugar, and honey was used as a substitute for eggs. What we thought might turn out disastrous turned out scrumptious. Lack of eggs and all.
This recipe makes 18 cookies.
1.75 cups all purpose flour
0.75 tsp baking soda
0.25 tsp salt
1.5 sticks unsalted butter (room temperature)
0.5 cups powdered confectioner's sugar
0.5 cups brown sugar
2-3 tbsp honey
6 oz semisweet chocolate chunks
3 oz chopped walnuts
Preheat oven to 375 F.
Beat together the room temperature butter and sugars. In a separate bowl, mix together the rest of the dry ingredients and then add them to the butter mixture. Add the honey, and if the dough feels too flaky, add a bit more.
Add the chocolate chunks and the walnuts. Be sure to use the semisweet chunks because it might be too sweet if not.
Using your hands to roll them into golf balls (or ping pong), lay them on parchment paper and bake them for 8-11 minutes. Don't let them burn. But if you do, we'll forgive you. (Half of our first batch burned. Burn baby burn)
Enjoy!
ILR
Addendum (By Samantha-Jane Jacobs)
This was a particularly entertaining experience; the baking of these DELICIOUS (really, really really really) cookies.
As I was chit chatting with ILR's adorable Russian father, Leo, ILR was mixing the butter and sugars in a large soup pot. While I would never doubt her rather eccentric culinary abilities, I have to admit I thought she might lightly heat these ingredients in order to mix them more easily. Of course, she did not (not that we had eggs to curdle or anything...)
Then, DILEMMA #1: no regular sugar, only powdered. Eh, It's sweet. In retrospect, this may be the most important aspect to these cookies. They are dense but flaky, like the perfect pie crust, which I gladly blame on the powdered sugar. After Leo made fun of us-OH, by the way, Leo was to receive a colonoscopy the next day so all he had consumed was chicken broth and clear liquids. Sad day for Leo. How we tortured him so.
Anyway, after Leo made fun of us DILEMMA #2 occurred. NO EGGS! The glue, the lifeblood of a good chocolate chip cookie was MIA. After running through our options, we opted for honey. It's sticky, right? We only needed it to hold the dough together in order to roll them into balls to back. I think since the cookies are indeed so similar to a pie crust, we could have slowly added tablespoons (4-7) of ice cold water but eh. The honey did prove to be an excellent binding material. Quite sweet, though. I would like to try this again using the ice water.
I think the moral of this cookie conundrum is that baking does NOT have to be science. It's not scary. It's quite easy. I suggest you bake and bake and BAKE and BAKE until you understand what all the ingredients do. Baking, then, will be a much more intuitive process and you will have more control over what you can do and what you think you couldn't do. Like, to this recipe, I'd definitely try adding some crispy cooked prosciutto or finely chopped pistachios. I'd consider omitting the chocolate chips, though. But hey, if chocolaty meat is your thing, then do it.
Cheers!
SJJ
