Christmas Chocolate Chip Cookies!

I really wanted to spend Saturday afternoon make a family recipe called Christmas Swirls, which are like of like a doughy candy, except that the Loblaws was completely out of peppermint extract (come on grocery stores! You gotta stock up on that stuff this time of year!). So my plan turned to just making chocolate chip cookies- but with a Christmas twist!

Also, my camera died so I took these photos with my phone.

I got this recipe from allrecipes.ca. Except this is one I have made a few times in various recipes because it is sooo good. The secret ingredient is vanilla pudding mix. I first discovered this twist in high school and I have never looked back! The Christmas Swirls recipe I wanted to make also included vanilla pudding mix- it is the secret ingredient of the season!

First of all, I had to assemble all my ingredients. I was a bit low on brown sugar and what was left was rock hard (fail on you, clay disk!). Anyway, I was scraping away to get enough sugar out and disaster struck!

Yikes. Luckily I had nearly enough so I just gave up at this point. But seriously, how crazy was that!

Then I mixed up my ingredients, with flour and baking soda going in last. I don't really know the science behind why you mix certain ingredients separately, but I try my best to follow. Once it was all mixed together I separated it into two batches added in a whole lot of red and green food dye. Bam! I just took those cookies from ordinary to Christmasfied!

I had halved this recipe, but somehow I STILL came away with about 37 cookies. Ridiculous how big the original recipe is! I can't think of any reason why I would need 74 cookies for anything. And if I did, I would just double a regular recipe. I've already eaten about 10 of these cookies so obviously that is why it is not safe to have 37 or 74 cookies in my condo.

As for the recipe, you can find it HERE. Try not to calculate the calories because this recipe is a love affair between butter and sugar :) Also, mine didn't come out that "soft" but maybe I left them in the oven too long? Either way, these are still super yummy!