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!