Cookie Pizza

Now, unless you count slice-and-bake, I don't think I've ever made cookies before. So naturally for my first attempt I chose a complicated recipe, made a lot of substitutions, and didn't follow their directions. Interestingly enough, it worked. Sort of. This recipe is largely based on one I found here, with notable changes.

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cup	unbleached all purpose flour
1 cup	chocolate chips
1/2 cup	dried cranberries
1/2 cup	softened butter
1/2 cup	sugar
1/2 cup	brown sugar
1/2 cup	sour cream
1	large egg
5 tsp	jellied cranberry sauce
1 tsp	vanilla extract
1/2 tsp	baking soda
1/2 tsp	salt

Procedure:
Combine flour, salt, and baking soda. Set aside. Beat sour cream, egg, vanilla, and cranberry sauce. Set aside. Preheat the oven to 375F.



Thoroughly mix sugar, brown sugar, and butter. Add sour cream mixture and mix well. Incrementally add in flour mixture while mixing until all has been added. Stir in cranberries and chocolate chips.



Butter a pizza pan, ideally one that is very large and/or has a lip around the edge. Spoon dough into one big lump on the center. Spread it out until it's most of the size of the pan and roughly uniform thickness. Try to make it a bit thicker around the edges and thinner in the middle, since the middles of things tend to cook more slowly. Bake for about 20 to 25 minutes, until golden brown. Allow to cool in the pan. After it's cooled down you should be able to remove it to serve (or you can just break off pieces of the hot cookie and munch on them).



I called this a success because I ended up with something edible made mostly out of sugar. However, Aaron and Katie have made me aware of the error in my ways. There are a few things that should be noted.

As I made it, this isn't really a cookie. It's very bread like. The amount of batter per square inch of pan was just too large. The solution is to just make the cookie thinner, either by using a larger pan or by making two cookies instead of one.

I also found the cranberries to be completely overruled by the chocolate sweetness. Honestly I don't have the baking expertise to safely recommend a solution to this problem. However, it was my impression that the dough was on the dryer end of the cookie dough spectrum. I suspect that doubling the amount of cranberry sauce would not disrupt the balance of liquids and solids. Cranberry juice concentrate might work better but it's hard to find (the stuff you buy is either sugary cocktail or mostly grape juice). For some serious pizzaz a few minced fresh cranberries could be added. I would also decrease by a third the number of chocolate chips or maybe substitute them for white chocolate.

This is something I will be very happy to revisit. With some help from the neighbors this cookie disappeared before this entry was even written.