Friday, October 30, 2009

Fun Fridays: Chocolate Chewies

Happy Halloween Eve! This past week for our family night we had a pumpkin night: carved jack-o-lanterns, drew pumpkins, and frosted pumpkin-shaped cookies. I have always had a hard time with making rolled sugar cookies during the holidays. The kids love to cut out and decorate the cookies, but for some crazy reason no one else in my family will actually EAT the darn things. And to be honest, I don't really like them, either. I'll usually eat them since I have an unhealthy sugar addiction, but that doesn't mean I enjoy them.

So in contemplating our pumpkin night, I was also thinking about our cookie problem. I have had some success in the past making a chocolate sugar cookie, so I starting gathering the ingredients together to bake them. Then it happened. As I was reaching for my baking cocoa, I saw the instant pudding on the shelf.

I happen to have 4 large (and I do mean large!) cans of instant pudding mix that are getting ready to expire. They were given to me by a friend who hoped I would use them more quickly than her family could. So since they needed to be used anyway... I may as well use them in cookies, right?

The end result was a delicious, chewy, rolled cookie. Heavenly. So far I have made them twice - both with the chocolate pudding. We'll try the vanilla next time! (I'm thinking we may need to make turkey shapes for Thanksgiving...)

Chocolate Chewies

1/2 c real butter, softened (1 stick)
1/4 margarine
1 c. chocolate instant pudding mix
(I think this is the equivalent of 2 large boxes)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 c sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 to 1 3/4 c. flour

Beat together softened butter and margarine.
Tip:If you are pulling your butter straight out of the fridge and don't have time to let it soften to room temperature on the counter, microwave the stick for about 10 seconds and then add it to the bowl. This isn't necessary to do with the margarine.
Add chocolate instant pudding, egg, and vanilla. Beat on low until most of the pudding is mixed in, or you'll have a fine chocolate powder all over your kitchen.
Once the powder is mostly mixed in, beat an additional 30-60 seconds on medium to high speed to mix well. Add sugar and baking powder and mix well.
Finally, add the flour. Because I now have a Kitchen Aid counter top mixer (yes, I know JUST how lucky I am!) I don't have to do any of my mixing by hand. However, I still add my flour in stages as if I were using a standard mixer. So when I add the flour, I start by adding 1 cup and mixing it in really well. Then I add the last 1/2 cup or so and mix that in. If you are using a regular mixer, you may have to do this last step by hand.

How do you know when you have enough flour? When your dough looks something like this:
If it's still a little too soft to handle, you can refrigerate it for about an hour before rolling out. However, the second time I made it I added a little too much flour and I could roll it out immediately. The down side of this is that you have to work harder to keep the dough from breaking apart as you are rolling out and cutting the cookies. I had to use a fork to transfer the cut cookies to the cookie sheet, but once they were baked they were just as chewy and delicious as the last batch.

So now that you have your cookie dough, place it on a lightly floured surface.
Roll dough about 1/4-inch thick and cut into desired shapes. These pumpkins were for our pumpkin night this past Monday.
Place on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper or sprayed with cooking spray.
Bake in a pre-heated oven at 375 degrees for about 8 minutes. Remove from cookie sheet and let cool before decorating.
Decorate as desired. These pumpkins were iced and my kids made jack-0-lantern faces with chocolate chips. I found that was too sweet for my taste and prefer them just plain. You can also take ghost shapes and coat with a fine layer of powdered sugar (see picture at top of post) using a sifter for a decorated yet not-as-overloaded-with-sugar-and-butter option.

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