Funfetti cookies, per reader request

Is it possible to resist a recipe that contains the line “beat the living crap out of it”?  If you are me, it most certainly is not.  So, reader Carrie, you had me at “crap” when you answered my cookie plea with your Funfetti recipe a couple of weeks ago.

But wait…  What was this Funfetti thing that I was supposed to purchase and beat into submission?  It sounded intriguing and entirely inedible.  This was clearly going to involve a trip to The Big Grocery Store, which I usually skip in favor of  shops where I can find mysterious animal parts, Buddah’s hands, and partially Americanized folk just like me.

And so I ventured  into The Big Grocery Store and found Funfetti (holiday version, even!).  But then I realized that I hadn’t brought Carrie’s recipe and had no idea what else I needed; oops.  So, I got some eggs (that’s what the Funfetti box suggested, both in writing and in pictures) and assumed I would be more or less set.

Wrong.  Apparently, I was supposed to get Cool Whip.   But I plowed on, figuring that the Funfetti mix would be difficult to offend (it looked so resilient! like something that would survive a nuclear holocaust).  And indeed, the substitutions that follow turned out to be just fine.

Funfetti cookies

• 1 box Funfetti mix (set sprinkles aside)
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup oil

1. Combine everything and–you knew this was coming!–beat the living crap out of it.  (I sure hope you have a free-standing mixer, because you will essentially be handling wet cement.)
2. Place teaspoon-sized drops onto a greased cookie sheet and drop some sprinkles onto each.
3. Bake for 10-12 minutes at 375F.

Disclaimer: I did not contribute a single shred of creativity to this recipe.  (But, I did learn what Funfetti is.  And I made some tasty, tasty cookies.)

Hazelnut + chocolate + black lava salt cookies

This was my weekend to tackle the cookie project.  You know: a south-European atheist, baking for the winter holidays?…  Yeah, there’s no cookbook for that.

I asked around.  I looked at pictures.  I googled and googled holiday cookies until I became cross-eyed, coming up with one artery-clogging, besprinkled interpretation after another.

But, reader, I was not feeling it.

Then I went to Fresh Market and just stood there, waiting for the muse to arrive.  …Turns out she had been  hiding in a bin of hazelnuts the entire time!

Hazelnut + chocolate + black lava salt cookies

• 1/2 stick butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 cups flour
• 1/3 cup toasted hazelnuts, coarsely chopped
• 1/3 cup bittersweet chocolate chips, coarsely chopped
• a pinch of black lava salt (optional, but oh-so-good)

1. Mix sugar and butter.
2. Add eggs and vanilla.
3. Add flour, salt, baking powder.
4. Toss in hazelnuts and chocolate chips.
5. Drop dough in little dollops onto a greased baking sheet.  Add a couple of grains of black salt to the top of each.
6. Bake 10-12 minutes at 375F.

So!  Our cookies are ready to go to friends and family… with the exception of the one the cat licked, and the six that Mr. Onepot ate while pretending to busy himself with some very important kitchen business.

Cookies: Why? How? Help!

Here’s a confession: when it comes to cookies, I am a complete idiot.  Where to even start?

First, there’s the why.  Sure, I’ve made chocolate chip cookies before… and they were just fine.  But, while I love both dough and chocolate, I can’t think of a very compelling reason to dirty many a bowl in order to combine them into a dessert when I could, for instance, just eat some chocolate straight.  I mean, look:

No improvement needed, right?  And chocolate is just one example, since this applies to so many other traditional cookie components.

And then there’s the butter thing.  I look at cookie recipes every once in a while and think, “Ooh!  Let’s make that!” … only to have my enthusiasm crash with a loud thud as soon as I see the amount of butter involved.  The mere thought of a whole cup of butter folded into, say, some luscious shortbread instantly causes me to envision Mr. Onepot clutching his chest and keeling over from a heart attack at the age of 40.

[Now, don't get me wrong: we ADORE butter.  And we're no health nuts (remember, just yesterday I told you how I will spend the coming winter in the me-shaped dent on the sofa?).  It's just that I'd prefer not to tuckpoint my husband's insides with cupfuls of dairy fat, lest I should end up a butter widow.]

So, please help!  What am I missing?  Surely there are some delightful, un-fussy, un-deadly cookies that I could be making right now if I only knew they existed?