What food would you say is your specialty?

Cooking is one of those things that people either really enjoy, loathe, or simply tolerate. My family loves to cook. We like the sense of adventure one can get from trying a new recipe or just throwing stuff together to see what we can create.

If I had to pick just one thing to say is my specialty, then I don’t know that I could give a strong answer.

That being said, baking is a different story. Baking is more measured and “scientific” than cooking because every ingredient in a baked good needs to be precisely used and balanced to reach the desired end result. Cooking you can just “go with your heart” and disregard a recipe when they say 2 cloves of garlic (to which I say fuck that and toss in 5 or more because I love garlic.)

So, in the realm of baking I would say my specialty would be cookies, although lately I’ve gotten better at making homemade pizza dough.

I love the kinds of cookies that aren’t too hard, not super crispy and crumbly. The outside and the edges can have a bit of crispiness because that texture adds to the experience, but I like somewhat soft and chewy cookies. If you all want I’ll gladly share my secret for these cookies. Super simple modification to any cookie recipe. I mean it, just about every cookie recipe I’ve followed and applied this trick to has come out amazing.

All you need is to pick whatever recipe you like, add a box of instant pudding mix and an egg to offset the additional dry ingredient. (So if your recipe calls for one egg and you add the dry pudding mix you’ll want to add a second egg.)

The fun part here is you can try different flavor combinations! I have two favorite flavor combinations for these cookies. One of my favorites has a white chip orange creamsicle kind of flavor and the other is a minty Grinch cookie.

Regardless of which recipe you follow and instant pudding flavor you choose to go with, my tip is to mix the instant pudding with room temp softened butter at the very beginning.

So for the white chip orange creamsicle flavored cookie, you can take a standard sugar cookie recipe or box mix from the store and add a box of vanilla instant pudding (I sometimes use the cheesecake flavor) then add an additional egg along with 1 to 2 teaspoons of orange extract followed by some orange food coloring or a mix of red and yellow to your desired shade of orange. Be careful with the orange extract, it can be more potent than vanilla extract in a baking recipe. When the dough comes together fold in about 2/3rds to 1 Cup of white chocolate chips. Most cookie recipes probably say to bake them for like 8-10 minutes, but because of the pudding mix and extra egg you’ll want to keep an eye on them and make sure they bake properly. I’ve had them bake for 9-13 minutes depending on the oven.

For the minty Grinch cookie I take a basic chocolate chip cookie recipe, add a box of Oreo Cookies and Cream instant pudding mix and the additional egg, as well as green food coloring to the desired shade of pastel mint green. Then substitute mint flavoring extract for the vanilla, and if you have them you can substitute Andes Mint pieces for the chocolate chips. The same tip for bake time applies here.

And that’s it! Perfect chewy cookies with a light crispiness to the edges.