Baking Blunders

I love to bake. In college baking was really the first “type” of grown up cooking that I explored. Never anything fancy, but beyond making cake and cookies from a box mix. Not there is anything wrong with that, I love me some box mixes.
Anyway…the other night I realized that I had some chocolate caramel chips to use up. I wish I had taken a picture of them, they are little chips with chocolate and caramel (probably fake flavoring) mixed together and they are SUPER DECADENT. I’d used them for a quick baking project a few weeks ago and realized I should probably bake them up in something quick.

I wanted to make something a little different, so I though about adding them to oatmeal cookies (and taking out the standard raisin addition, I HATE raisins in cookies. Gross.) I found a recipe on http://www.recipes.com/ and away I went.

Well…lesson learned, never assume you have all the ingredients in your pantry.

The recipe is really quite simple, but I didn’t have brown sugar. AFTER starting the recipe, I realized that ours had hardened from lack of use, and I threw it out like two months ago. Doh! Oh and these are not healthy at all, in any way shape or form

Here is the recipe I used:
1 stick butter
Almost 1 cup of sugar
1 egg
1 cup flour
1 ½ cup oats
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
½ tsp cinnamon
Splash vanilla
½ cup chocolate caramel chips

Cream together wet ingredients.

Mix together dry ingredients, except for oats.

Mix wet and dry together, THEN mix in oats and chips.

Set it fridge until cold enough to hand with out getting sticky.

Roll into 1 ½ inch balls and place on baking sheet. Press down each cookie with fork to flatten.

Bake at 350 8-10 minutes.
These turned out pretty good. They are…interesting. They kind of taste like sugar cookies, oatmeal cookies and chocolate chip cookies all mixed in.
They are soft, but also have a delicate feel to them. Like they should be consumed with tea. I guess describing them as interesting would imply that they don’t taste good. They taste delicious.
also please excuse the hideou color of my kitchen counters. Our whole hous is umm...late 90's "chic." we're working on it. The trick to having baked goods in my house, and not over consuming them, is to tell my self that they are not off limits, but htem in a storage container in the pantry and be done with it. I also halved the original recipe. Less cookies to make…less cookies to consume.

My husband, bless his heart isn’t a big “Dessert Person,” which, in my opinion, kind of makes him a freak of nature. He also, doesn’t like it, when I do bake, if I “make it too healthy.” So..If I want help eating the treats, it’s got to be the real deal, and in a small quantity. Which, works for us. I would rather have a good decadent treat, in a small portion and feel satisfied. Also, if I can justify to myself that something is “healthy” I will eat 10 of them. Like I said….it’s a long road.