Like I said, my sister headed back to college this morning. My brother goes there too. And…both younger siblings starting a new year of school is a great excuse to bake and send goodies.

David Lebovitz’s Great Chocolate Chip Cookie

I have quite the list of cookie recipes that I want to try. Most are chocolate chip, and this one has been on the list for a long time. It made the list because of Heidi Swanson’s description of its “high chip to dough ratio.” I used dark brown sugar instead of light (because that’s what I had in the pantry), light butter, and pre-chopped “cookie bits” pecans.

I used to omit nuts from cookie recipes, but the last few recipes have called for them and I’ve used them with delicious results. The finely chopped nuts add a great texture to both the dough and the finished product. The cookie actually looks like it has oatmeal in it, although it does not.

This is literally a GREAT chocolate chip cookie. The name does not lie. I’m sad that I gave them (almost) all away to my siblings.

Maple Oat Yummies

I did not get 20 cookies from the David Lebovitz recipe. I only got 10, and since I ate much less dough than I wanted, I’m concluding that I made very large cookies, even though I (kind of) measured the balls of dough. Ten cookies is not enough for feeding the masses, so I decided to make a second kind. I got out my Pillsbury: Best of the Bake-Off cookbook and looked for a cookie recipe that I could make with ingredients that I already had. I settled on Maple Peanut Yummies. It’s a peanut butter cookie with the lovely addition of maple syrup. I halved the recipe.

Those chunks of chocolate are Reese’s Premier Baking Bits (tiny Reese’s Cups). They were not called for in the original recipe, but I added them because although the dough tasted and smelled absolutely divine, it looked a little lonely. This is about 1/3 of a bag, which is all I had after a previous baking adventure.

These are great cookies. The maple syrup is a wonderful addition to a peanut butter cookie. I used the cheap, lite, crappy maple syrup, so I can only imagine how wonderful these would be with the good kind.

Blake Russell’s Pumpkin Bread

Gotta do one from The Runner’s Cookbook, right? Even better, I baked this bread on Saturday and then got to eat a slice of it while watching Blake Russell represent the U.S. in the Olympic marathon. This recipe looked huge, so I halved it and still got a giant loaf of pumpkin bread. I’m currently resisting devouring the rest of my portion. It’s really, really good.

What is it with Olympic marathoners and pumpkin? It only contains about 8,000,000% of your daily Vitamin A. It’s only packed with antioxidants and fiber. Sheesh! Besides Russell and Kastor’s recipes, there are four other pumpkin recipes in The Runner’s Cookbook. They must be on to something. But sorry, Amby Burfoot, I’m too scared to make your Pumpkin Peanut Butter Soup without some kind of guarantee that it will make me a marathon champ too.

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