Semifinals Game #2: Award Winning Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies vs. Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

My Thursday was terrible.  I started the day exhausted.  It then became apparent that I have disappointed everyone in the world by doing an altogether horrible job.  I was in a terrible mood.  I announced before I left that I would not make cookies as previously planned, because I hated everything in the world.

Because cookie days seem to make everyone happier, though, I decided to make up the cookies for the second Semifinal game between Kristy's Award Winning Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies (p. 121) and Navika's Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies (p. 127).  I am glad I did, too, since baking tends to put me in a better mood, and by the end of baking I felt quite a lot more content.

First I mixed together the Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies.  I almost didn't remember to double the recipe several times, but I managed to get all the ingredients in there in the correct quantities in the end.  Again, when it came to mixing in the absurd number of chocolate chips, my arms got an excellent workout (a good thing, too, since I hadn't exercised since Monday night).  I chilled the dough in a separate bowl, and cleaned up all my bowls and measuring implements so that I'd be ready to mix up the second batch.

Once I got rolling on baking the Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies, I started to put together the Award Winning Soft Chocolate Chip Cookie dough.  This time I had the correct size of instant pudding mix, so no math was necessary for this batch.  Also, I had Diamond brand chopped walnuts, and I'll have to take back all of the disparaging things I said last time about the nut industry - they were chopped into small enough pieces that I could just add them into the mix.  Again I got a good arm workout as I mixed all of the chocolate chips and walnuts into the dough.  By this time my husband was fully asleep on the couch, and the Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies were finished baking.

I rolled all of the Award Winning Soft Chocolate Chip Cookie balls so that I could start washing the dished while they baked.  The recipe, as stated, makes about 6 dozen cookies so I had a fair amount of time while they baked in order to set the kitchen back to rights.  Still, I only finished by about the time I was three oven-fulls from being finished.  I woke up my husband and asked him to bake the last trays while I got a shower (not cheating since I've made these before!).

Although we've seen these before, I think I did a better job baking the Award Winning Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies this time, so here is a picture (Award Winning Cookies are on the left, Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies are on the right):

Everyone enjoyed tasting both of these cookies again.  I truly didn't know which one would be the winner since both cookies had an ingredient which may dissuade some voters - Walnuts in the Award Winning cookies and Oatmeal in the Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies.  When the votes were tallied, the Award Winning Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies were the victor - the final score was 13 to 3.

Next week we'll have our finals, with Award Winning Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies competing against Turtle Fudge Chocolate Chip Cookies.  I know everyone is looking forward to seeing these two epic cookie recipes face off!

Semifinals Game #1: Salted Chocolate Chip Toffee Cookies vs. Turtle Fudge Chocolate Chip Cookies

Last Monday brought us to our first semifinal match up, between the Number 2 seed, Salted Chocolate Chip Toffee Cookies and the Number 3 seed, Turtle Fudge Chocolate Chip Cookies.  Sunday, after arriving home from the quilt retreat, I sprang into action... by taking a long bath.  But then - then, I started baking cookies.

First I tackled Joni's Turtle Fudge Chocolate Chip Cookies (p. 132), which mixed up and baked very similarly to the first time I made them.  I felt less stressed this time, perhaps because I had done this all before, or perhaps just because of the aforementioned long bath.  Both children helped unwrap Dove Chocolates for me, and restrained themselves reasonably well from eating them as they did so. 

Before I knew it we were finished with those and it was on to baking Todd's Salted Chocolate Chip Toffee Cookies (p. 130).  Readers may recall that I felt the first time I made these was sort of a disaster, and I was shocked when they still won despite being a bit burnt.  On Sunday night, I had started to mix up the cookies when I realized I had no sea salt in my house (recall I made these at my sister's house previously).  What I had thought was sea salt was actually Kosher Coarse Salt.  Google searches revealed that you can substitute sea salt for kosher salt in "most" recipes, although it appears that no one on the internet wants to know or share whether the reverse is true.  My husband volunteered to run out to the store for some while I got the kids to bed, which allowed me some time to allow the mixture to cool before adding the toffee bits.  During the previous batch, I had rushed this step and suspected that the toffee bits were meant to stay intact and not melt.  This time, the benefits of slowing down showed - most toffee bits stayed intact.  Since I was at home, I also had the benefit of using parchment paper, which worked so much better than wax paper that I wanted to sing.  These were not the burnt, steamy cookies of last time!  These actually looked like they could be tasty!

Here is a picture of both cookies.  Turtle Fudge Chocolate Chip Cookies were labeled as Cookie A and are on the right, Salted Chocolate Chip Toffee Cookies were labeled as Cookie B and are on the left:

Indeed, everyone seemed to love both cookies, and it seemed to be a difficult decision for most.  Were the Turtle Fudges too sweet?  Were the Salted Chocolate Cookies too odd?  In the end, the Turtle Fudge Chocolate Chip Cookies took the win, 12 to 7 over the Salted Chocolate Chip Toffee Cookies.  Congratulations to Joni for moving on to the finals!

Quarterfinals Game #4: Award Winning Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies vs. Chocolate Chip Cookies

Since I was out of the office Thursday and Friday of last week to attend a quilt retreat in Lancaster, PA, I made cookies for our fourth quarterfinal game on Tuesday night.  Finally we had reached our final untasted recipe, the number 1 seed, Kristy's Award Winning Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies (p. 121).

Kristy's recipe includes optional chopped walnuts, which gave me pause.  What are the tournament rules regarding optional ingredients?  I had just had a conversation with some coworkers which revealed that nuts are apparently a polarizing ingredient to include in cookies!  If I included the nuts, was I doing a disservice to Kristy?  But I like nuts in my cookies.  So, throwing caution to the wind, I included them.

At this juncture I'd like to have a quick sidebar about "chopped" nuts.  I have noticed that the supermarket sells Diamond brand chopped nuts... they sell local farm brands of chopped nuts.  And I have come to believe that "chopped" is the nut industry's term for "nuts that aren't whole".  This includes mostly nuts that are 95% whole and are, in my opinion, in need of further processing to make them "chopped". 

Regardless, instead of pulling out my food processor to chop the walnuts, I decided to "save time" by breaking them into small pieces with my hands.  This time-saving method, of course, ended up taking gobs of time, and I finally got to baking these cookies after 9 pm.  Another ingredient in Kristy's Award Winning Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies was instant pudding mix (I suspect this is a "secret ingredient" of Kristy's).  My husband had kindly bought two packages for me at the store... which were, alas, the wrong size.  I determined through measurement that I needed to include exactly 1 and 1/3 boxes of pudding mix.  I can say with almost absolute certainty that 1/3 box of the larger size of pudding mix is about 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon of pudding mix, and that is what I added to the mix.

Nonetheless, they baked well, and, made the ton of cookies Kristy indicates (6 dozen!). Then I moved on to baking Wanda's Chocolate Chip Cookies (number 8 seed), which previously beat out Cranberry Oat Chip Cookies in a preliminary matchup.  Wanda's cookies baked exceedingly well, which may indicate that I really should have baked all of the recipes in a trial run prior to embarking on the tournament.  Of course that would have cost a lot of money and time, and I would have had to consume all of them myself!  This time the Chocolate Chip Cookies baked perfectly.  One taster said they were the best cookies she had ever had and that she was going to "make love to them".  Others were wowed by the softness and chocolate-chip-rich Award Winning Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies.  As my husband put it, "This is going to be the closest one yet". 

When the final votes were tallied, Wanda's Chocolate Chip Cookies lost by only one vote to Kristy's Award Winning Chocolate Chip Cookies, with a score of 10 to 11.  Now we have our final four:

     (1) Award Winning Chocolate Chip Cookies
     (4) Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
     (2) Salted Chocolate Chip Cookies
     (3) Turtle Fudge Chocolate Chip Cookies

No, I don't have the numbers out of order - those are the seeds.  Apparently my original seeding was impeccable: we have only seen one upset (Vegan Peanut Chocolate Chip Cookies over Chocolate Chip Cookies in Preliminary Match 1, which, if you recall, I suggested would probably happen prior to the start of the tournament).  Do I just know my cookies, or, as my husband accuses, am I secretly trying harder when I bake the cookie I expect to win?  I suspect I am just a cookie genius!