Chocolate Chip Cookies FOUR Ways

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When I think about cookies, the first one to pop into my head is Chocolate Chip cookies. There is nothing like a warm, chewy chocolate chip cookie. My friends would beg me to make chocolate chip cookies for them when I was a teenager, and my siblings still beg me to make them anytime I’m in town. I’ve tried several different recipes and I have 2 favorites. The one I am sharing with you today is one I found on Pinterest by The Pinning Mama . She calls them Copycat Panera Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie . Just click on that link and it will take you over to her beautiful recipe. These cookies turn out perfectly every time!! I made a few very slight changes to mine today and I’ll list them below. We are going to show you how to take a classic and turn it into something festive for just about any Holiday, and four different ways to do it.

The first thing you might notice is that my cookies aren’t quite as “puffy” as the ones The Pinning Mama made. Well one reason for that is, I made these a LOT smaller and the main reason is, I didn’t freeze them as long as I normally do. Caking Kiddo 2 was anxious to get these guys baked and her impatience got the best of me! Freezing the dough for at least 24 hours lets the dry ingredients absorb all the moisture and the the fat to freeze thoroughly. When you pop them into the oven frozen it just makes a PERFECTLY puffy, chewy cookie. As for the size, I used a mini scoop to portion my dough before freezing. Since I was adding extra sweetness to my cookies with chocolate and buttercream (yes…I said buttercream..patience grasshopper and the secrets will be revealed), I didn’t want these to be huge. Hello sweetness.

Now lets talk about making these four different ways. My first switcharoo I use to take these up another notch are Andes Mint Baking Chips. I Love Love LOVE mint and chocolate, and Andes Mints are one of my favorite things EVER. I added them to a batch of cookies one time, and I was hooked. These are a Christmas time staple over here. You can find them in the baking aisle right by the chocolate chips. I added about 8 ounces to the recipe along with the called for amount of chocolate chips. Feel free to add more or less depending on your taste, or just leave them out altogether. These will still be delicious!

Once the cookies were baked and cooled we took some and dunked them half way in melted chocolate and added sprinkles. Then we took some of the other cookies, and got all fancy by piping a healthy serving of buttercream (any buttercream recipe will do) on the bottom of one and sandwiched another cookie on top of the buttercream. Some of the buttercream was squishing out of the sides, so we rolled the edges in sprinkles. So adorable!

So far we have added mint, dunked them in chocolate, made buttercream sandwich cookies with sprinkles, and now it’s time to share with you what I affectionately call a Double Trouble. As if making a buttercream sandwich out of chocolate chip cookies wasn’t delicious enough, we take it a step further by dunking half of it in chocolate!! Double the trouble of a buttercream cookie sandwich by bringing chocolate to the party. It’s delicious, creamy, sinful and something you have to try at least once. We used white chocolate, but dark chocolate is amazing too if you’re into the darker side of chocolate. Yuuuummmmmm!

There you have it! Chocolate Chip Cookies four ways. Who says you can’t take a delicious classic and make it festive for the Holidays?? Just add some mint, buttercream, chocolate and of course SPRINKLES! Let us know if you give these a try and what you think of them.