The Author and Social Media

At CoKoCon I attended a panel on Branding. It was not what I expected.

It boiled down to showing videos of your cat (or dog) on your blog. One author on the panel was a fan of The Great British Baking Show and her blog is about cookies and other bake goods.

So as a bribe to get you to visit this site here is an old family chocolate chip cookie recipe.

From; Professor Voltage’s Book of extraordinarily DANGEROUS Cooking

Chocolate Chip Cookies
Old family recipe

Ingredients;

2 1/4 cups all-purpose floor (un-shifted, just scoop it out without compressing the flour and strike off with back side of butter knife so the flour is level with the top of the cup).
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup butter (two sticks)(softened, see tips)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 teaspoon Vanilla
2 large eggs
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions;

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (check oven temperature with thermometer).
2. Place gallon sized plastic bag in small, steep sided, bowl. A metal bowl with a 6 and 1/4 to 6 and 3/8 mouth works great.
3. In plastic bag place; flour, baking soda, and salt. Close end of bag, take bag out of bowl and mix well (think shake and bake). Set bag aside.
4. Place butter in a large mixer bowl. Start mixer and beat butter.
5. Add granulated sugar, brown sugar to mixer bowl. Beat until butter and sugar are creamed. See tips on creaming butter (it takes about 5 to 10 minutes in an electric mixer, mixture will be light colored and fluffy).
6. Add Vanilla and beat till well mixed.
7. Add eggs and beat well.
8. Add flour gently or there will be a flour explosion and flour will be everywhere. I told you this was dangerous. Don’t get plastic bag caught in mixer.
9. When well mixed turn off mixer. Raise mixer head and clean off beaters.
10. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts with spatula, by hand.
11. Spoon rounded lumps (I use a ordinary tablespoon) onto ungreased baking/cookie sheet.
12. Bake 10 to 11 minutes or until golden brown.
13. Let baking sheet stand in cool place for five minutes.
14. Remove cookies from baking sheet.
15. Store cookies in an air tight container. Makes about 5 dozen cookies. Tips;
    Make sure cookie sheets fit in oven and oven door will close.
    Place oven rack in middle of oven.
    Preheat oven.
    Make sure baking soda is good. If in doubt get a new can.
    Softened butter means let butter sit at room temperature until you can press on butter and leave a impression in the butter.
    Creaming butter is an old baking term. It means beating butter until air is trapped inside the butter mixture. It makes for a thick cookie (airy, chewy).
    Don’t skip the salt.
    Keep the dough cool. Place dough in refrigerator if it starts to get warm. Warm dough makes flat cookies.
    Using melted butter makes flat cookies. Some people like flat, thin, hard, cookies (with coffee).
    Use three large baking/cookie sheets. One in the oven, one being loaded, and one cooling.
    Make sure baking/cookie sheet is cool before placing cookie dough on sheet. Cookie dough can be frozen. Works great. It can also be refrigerated for several days. Make a log out of the dough and wrap/roll the dough in a gallon plastic bag. When you want a cookie or two, unroll the dough and cut a half inch to three quarter of an inch off roll. Reseal the dough by warping the dough in the plastic bag and return to refrigerator. Cook the dough before eating.
    Do not grease cookie sheets. It will fry the bottom of the cookies and over cook them. The cookies have enough butter in them they don’t need grease.