Strike One

The greatest cookie in the world is one of my Aunt Jan's snoball cookies. I don't mean it is one of the best in the world...it is THE best cookie period! I've been craving Aunt Jan's snoball cookies and I was afraid she would just send me a batch instead of give the recipe if I asked, so I went to the Internet this afternoon.

All the snoball cookie recipes I found called for pecans, but I remember Aunt Jan telling me they need chocolate chips instead of the nuts, so that's what I went with. The recipe I found was as follows:

1 cup (2 sticks) margarine or butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1½ cups chocolate chips
2 cups flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup powdered sugar

Beat margarine, sugar and vanilla in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until creamy. Blend in chocolate chips, flour and salt. Refrigerate dough 1 hour. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Place on ungreased cookie sheets, 2 inches apart. Bake at 350° for 10 to 12 minutes or until set. Remove from cookie sheets; cool on wire racks. Dust with powdered sugar. Store in airtight container.

OK, first of all, I changed 1.5 cups of pecans to 1.5 cups of chocolate chips. I don't think that's what led to the disaster...I think it was something after that. First of all, I put everything in the bowl before I mixed instead of leaving the chips, flour and salt to the later part of the mixing routine. Secondly, I thought the 1/2 cup of powdered sugar was for the "dusting" at the end, so I didn't mix it in with everything else. I put the dough in the refrigerator for an hour, but when it was time to make balls, it didn't roll very well so I sorta blobbed it on the pan.

The result? The cookies were not in balls and they tasted something like flour pancakes with chocolate chips in them! Not only did they not take like Aunt Jan's, but they didn't taste good enough to eat. Amanda thought she wanted one, but she threw her second half in the trash as I was tossing the rest of them.

Now I've got to go buy more chocolate chips and butter if I want to try it again. Strike one.

- Rob