The Big Cookie Project

If you don't know me, I like to bake. Not just for fun but when I'm stressed as well. This time last year it was TAKS season and I was baking up a storm just thinking about my 3rd graders taking an all-day test.

I'm not too particular on what to bake. Bread is ok, but you have to wait all that time and let it rise. Cakes are all right, but icing gets a little messy. If you made me choose, I would vote for cookies. Cookies are great! You can eat one every time you are in the kitchen, they make your house smell yummy and they come in DOZENS, not ONE cake or ONE loaf of bread. I recently inherited "Martha Stewarts Cookie Book" (thank you Mary Kay) and have come up with a plan:

I will bake one kind of new cookie every week. At the end of the year I will have baked 52 (i know, that's a lot of cookies) different kinds of cookies. Then, I started making some guidelines that I would have to follow:

1. No break-and-bake cookies...that's basicallly cheating

2. No cookie that I have made before (sorry chocolate chip cookie, but I'll see you in a year).

3. They have to meet the definition of a cookie: a small sweet dough rolled, sliced or dropped on to a flat pan (cookie sheet) and baked in the oven. This means no no-bake cookies or big cookie cakes to save on baking time.

Some problems I thought of:

1. I will have a TON of cookies laying around the house if I'm baking a batch every week. Hence, I will have to run more to compensate "taste-testing" all of the cookies

2. Do I even have 52 cookie recipes that I want to try? There are that many recipes out there, but I bet they aren't all winners.

So, if you are reading this and thinking that you have a fantastic recipe to share: please do! If I am on top of the ball, I will be posting pictures and recipes once a week and tell you how the cookies came out.

If anyone wants to join me in this fantastical journey of baking, please come along for the ride!

Happy Baking!