Birthday Cookies!

I tortured my Twitter followers on Memorial Day with my constant pictures of the goodies I was baking for my brother.

He's turning 22 on June 5th, and his girlfriend is already sending him baked goods but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to fill up one of those APO boxes with cookies, cookies, cookies!

Does anyone else do this when they bake? I like to keep a list of the ingredients and their amounts at quick eye level. 

I did three different cookies: Chocolate Chip, Double Chocolate Chip, and Blondies.

I started with the Chocolate Chip cookies since they're supposed to be old hat for me by now, but... apparently I'm more rusty than I thought.

It's from over-beating the butter, I think. The recipe also had a surprisingly small amount of baking soda which might be why they didn't rise, plus it called for baking at 375 instead of the usual 350 so I don't know, I guess this whole recipe was a mess. It'll still taste great and it's not like the cookies would've arrived in pristine condition anyway.

The second thing I started was the Blondies, as suggested by Mr. Cheddar, who is very partial to them. Instead of butterscotch, I used white chocolate chips.

And while that was baking up, I started melting the chocolate for the Double-Chocolate Chip Cookies.

In my fancy double-boiler!

HA, just kidding. I will never have any use for a double-boiler, I've always used glass or metal bowls set into a pot of boiling water. Why take up precious cabinet space with something that I can concoct on my own?

And it's a virtually foolproof way to keep from burning your chocolate.

Really, I could take pictures of the insides of metal bowls for days. It feels very artistic.

These cookies used an entire teaspoon more of baking soda than the chocolate chip ones, so I think that was the real flaw. Or I don't know. Clearly I need to go back to cookie-baking school.

Then the Blondies were done!

Get it? Instead of "brownies," which are brown from chocolate? I think whoever named it was clever.

I started cutting it up to wrap individually but Mr. Cheddar stole a piece. His true motive behind suggesting I bake Blondies was revealed!

And now everything is packed up and waiting to be boxed up.

That's how I spent my tropical-storm-ridden Memorial Day, how did you spend yours?

Lucy spent most of it like this: