Battle for the Blue Ribbon!

LET THE BATTLE BEGIN!

By: Laura

   You may remember from many posts ago, that I entered a carrot cake into the County Fair and won the blue ribbon.  This year, I'm going to be entering a few things, including carrot cake, but none of those things matter as much as the classic chocolate chip cookie.

    Mom and I decided to battle it out to see who had the best recipe for the All American snack, and let me tell you; it's been intense.  Mom's doing a bit of trash talking, and I can't say I haven't been returning the favor, but it all boils down to the judges' pick at the fair.  May the best baker win!

First, let's check out the recipes:

We'll begin with my cookies (because first is best):

Look at that creamy richness.  I've got the butter, eggs and sugar going here.  One of the major differences between Mom and I's recipes: BUTTER!  I'm all in on the butter, mom goes half and half with some shortening (lame).

Here is the finished dough.  Lovely, I know. 

My cookies, ready for the oven...

The main event!  I was a bit worried that mine were spreading out too much, so I refrigerated them for an hour or so.    I had much better results after that.  Here is the recipe I used from the excellent blog, My Baking Addiction.

So, these cookies looked and tasted amazin', but you know that my Mom ain't no fool in the kitchen, she can bake like nobody's business, so here is my competition:

Mom has some ingredients above (she even had to take better pictures than me, ugh!)

Adding some dry ingredients...looking good in the old apron!

That dough looks good...too good!

Mom rolling out her cookies.  Look at that technique!

Now, this is just ridiculous; rolling them out by hand may make them too perfect.  Too much, really, too much Jacque.  

Okay, now I admit when I saw these beauts come out of the oven, I was getting a little nervous and that's when mom said, "you still might win, Laura." (imagine a lot of sarcasm here)

So, now we can't wait to see what the judge has to say, maybe one of us will get first, second, or perhaps not even place, but it's been fun, no matter what.  Stay tuned for the results and for Mom's recipe!  

Ella was our little helper!