8/100: Brownies in cookie form

This Sunday I made chocolate crinkle cookies! What are they, you ask? They are essentially brownies in cookie form, hence the title. They are incredibly easy to make, quite fun to bake, and an absolute dream to eat. I highly recommend them, and I highly recommend using this recipe! This recipe is near and dear to me for many reasons. The first is that, about a year ago, my brother sent these cookies to me in care-package form. It was honestly one of the sweetest things I've ever received (har har), but it was a touching memory that I'll never forget. So big bro- thank you! Another reason this recipe is important to me is because it is from the website What's Gaby cooking. This is my sister-in-law's absolute favorite cooking website/instagram/book/chef hands down. Because Tristan's love for this chef is so real I also follow the chef and now covet Gaby's cookbook as well. After baking these cookies and seeing how awesome they turned out, I now covet the cookbook even more. Now, on to the bake!

I had the pleasure of baking with my cousin Sarah. I went to her place in Fremont and we went food shopping together so we could gather all of the ingredients. This has turned a bit into our tradition: decide what to bake before we see each other, food shop, drink boba, and bake when we're together. I really enjoy this tradition!

Another bake, another house

One thing I quite enjoyed about baking with Sarah was her support of the blog! She kept reminding me to take photos and staging everything perfectly. The photo above was the last photo I was allowed to take before she realized these were going on the blog, so every photo had to be perfect ;).

The recipe is actually quite easy- it uses vegetable oil, so there's no creaming butter and sugar step. The step that took the longest was that you need to bring the eggs to room temperature. After an hour of gossip and rolling eggs in my hands they were finally room temperature and we got the mixer mixing!

The liquids

After adding in the flour

Action shot! Look! I actually bake!

After combining all of the ingredients together, we then let the dough rest in the refrigerator for 3 hours. This is an important step because the batter is pretty liquidy, so you definitely need to get it cold so that it firms up. Our 3 hour wait was made quite quick by the new Ted Bundy documentary on Netflix. Let me tell you- the first two episodes were normal serial killer fare. But the second half of the third episode? Makes my hair stand up just thinking about it! It reminds me of a quote that Dave Matthews said in one of his live sets: "There's evil out there people." He was talking about war, I'm talking about Ted Bundy.

Anyway, after 3 quick hours it was time to make some cookie dough balls! First things first: grease up the hands with vegetable oil. It's going to feel totally gross and weird, but it's absolutely essential. Basically, this dough is so sticky that if you don't oil up you will end up with all of the chocolate dough on your hands and none in the ball you were trying so desperately to form. I learned this when all of the vegetable oil eventually transferred off of my hands and my hands instead looked like they were wearing chocolate gloves. Lesson learned: oil up! After you make the cookie dough balls, you roll them in powdered sugar, much like snickerdoodles! Then, you pop them into the oven. Our dough balls were a little bigger, so we went for 16 minutes.

Before. Excellent rolling work, Sarah!

After! Yummmm

I will say that Sarah and I had a very difficult time telling if these cookies were done. In fact, we even threw the first batch back into the oven for an extra minute. Turns out brown cookies don't turn a "golden brown." What is the metric you use to tell when chocolate cookies are done? I am thankful for any secrets. Nevertheless, I think we found the perfect baking time, because these cookies were GOOD. They were incredibly fluffy, had a soft hard crunch of the crust, and sooo chocolatey and delicious. If you like brownies, you will love these cookies. So make them!

Finished product- insta style

I had a super great time baking these cookies. I loved the sentiment, I loved the company (thank you so much Sarah!), I loved the end result, and I loved baking in general! I am a little behind with my baking, but tomorrow I am determined to bake (and blog??) to make sure this train stays on the rails!