Jolene Sugarbaker comes through for a cookie swap

It's time for another cookie swap at work, and I finally decided to tap into the wisdom that is Jolene!

The cookie of choice is her potato chip chocolate chip cookie. She used crushed Utz (look closely at that video; it's Utz) to make a crispy and crunchy cookie. My results were, well, a wee bit different. I got a cookie that was definitely not crispy, but kind of soft and a little less sweet than I thought I'd get. In fact, they were almost pastry-like. Part of all that has to do with the potato chips. But part of that, I think, also has to do with my substitution of Splenda sugar and brown sugar for the real stuff.

After I transcribed the recipe, I guesstimated that I would have to quadruple the recipe to make enough for all my coworkers (at least 20). Then I went ahead and bought all the ingredients. I knew I had some at home but to be on the cautious side, I bought them all, flour included. The total came to $70 (waaaah). That's not an expense I expected, especially after the NYC trip.

So here's the recipe as I transcribed it:

1 c sugar
1 c brown sugar
1 c oil
1 c butter
1 egg
1 T sour milk (or milk with a dash of vinegar)
1 t vanilla
1 t almond extract
1 t cream of tartar
1 t baking soda
½ t salt
2 c Utz
3.5 – 4 c flour
2 c chocolate chips

Crush chips, and cream sugars and fats together. Next, mix in other ingredients, except for flour and chocolate chips. Separately mix in flour, then chocolate chips. Put on a baking pan, and make nice little balls and plop ‘em on the tray. Bake at 350 degrees F for 10 minutes or until nice and golden brown.

I was in a hurry, alright?

I made a few changes, some deliberate, some not. First there was the whole Splenda thing. Also, in my first of two batches I replaced half of the chocolate chips with butterscotch chips, just to be different. That was totally accidental.

The first batch made about 50 cookies, but I needed more than that (each coworker gets four cookies, so that's 80 right there). Lucky for me I had enough to make four batches! Unlucky for me, though, that I spent so much money and only needed one more batch. Math was never my strongest subject. Actually scratch that - I was far worse in physics.

I churned out lots of cookies. Since I was using the folks' kitchen (mine is, well, puny) they were halfway interested in trying - eager because they were free cookies, not so eager because they had potato chips in them. They liked them. I was surprised, particularly because of the pastry-like brittleness of the cookie. Good cookie, but unusual. Very unusual because it's not that sweet. Again, may be due to the Splenda, but I'm not sure.