30 Jun 2010 – Believe in the Magic Traci Diary

I enjoy reading murder mysteries. One of my favorite authors is Joanne Fluke. The main character in her books is Hannah Swenson. Hannah has a knack for finding dead bodies, which drives her mother absolutely batty. With the help of her mother, sisters, and friends, she investigates murders. Since Hannah owns a cookie shop, the author includes recipes for different types of baked goodies plus other food. In the past, I’ve tried different cookie recipes. Usually, I am impressed with the end result. One such recipe was for pretzel chocolate chip cookies.

Last month, our new church had a get-together. We were supposed to bring a different type of dish to share. I decided to take a batch of these pretzel chocolate chip cookies. Everyone’s reaction to these cookies was a positive one. Since the only other dessert was strawberry shortcake, which was also good, it was nice to have cookies there.

The boys enjoyed crushing the pretzels into tiny bits. I put a handful or two of pretzels into a zip lock bag, hand them a meat mallet and a plastic cutting board and then let them pound away at the pretzels. I’d rather have them pound out the pretzels rather than each other.

Without further ado, here is the recipe.

Pretzel Chocolate Chip Cookies

Time: 1 hour
Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients

– 1 cup softened butter (2 sticks, 1/2 pound)

– 2 cups granulated sugar (white)

– 3 Tbsp. molasses

– 2 tsp. vanilla

– 1 tsp. baking soda

– 2 beaten eggs (just whip them up in a glass with a fork – poke the yolks first)

– 2 cups crushed salted thin stick pretzels (measure after crushing)

– 2 and 1/2 cups all purpose flour

– 1 and 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix the softened butter with the sugar and the molasses. Beat until the mixture is light and fluffy, and the molasses is completely mixed in.
Add the vanilla and baking soda. Mix them in well.
Break eggs into a glass and whip them up with a fork. Add them to your bowl and mix until they’re thoroughly incorporated.
Put your pretzels in a zip lock plastic bag. Seal it carefully and place it on a flat surface. Get out your rolling pin and run it over the bag, crushing the pretzels inside. Do this until there are no large pieces and the largest is a quarter-inch long.
Measure out two cups of crushed pretzels and mix them into the dough in your bowl.
Add one cup of flour and mix it in. Then add the second cup and mix thoroughly. Add the final half cup of flour and mix that in.
Measure out a cup and a half of chocolate chips and add them to your cookie dough. If you’re using an electric mixer, mix them in at the slowest speed. You can also put the mixer away, and stir in the chips by hand.
Drop by rounded teaspoons onto greased or sprayed with nonstick cooking spray cookie sheets. Place 12 cookies on each standard sheet.
Bake at 350 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes or until nicely browned. (I do it for 11 minutes.)