Giant Chocolate Chip Cookie! #birthdaybaking

This has been a crazy week. My son had strep this weekend. I knew he had a low-grade fever, but he seemed okay. So I waited until Monday morning to call his pediatrician. We went in, he got swabbed, and she gave us the strep diagnosis. Oops, so much for mother's instinct. I felt guilty. I know I shouldn't have—he never even complained of a sore throat!—but I did.

I had this idea to bake my son a giant cookie (to make him feel better? to assuage my guilt?) and I couldn't shake that feeling. He adores cookies. And, I figured, I could fit it into my hectic schedule. After all, the hardest part of baking cookies is dropping all those little piles of cookie dough, waiting for each to sheet to bake. At least, that's the part that annoys me. Patience has not always been my strong suit. So, a giant cookie it would be. 

I found this recipe over at Mel's Kitchen Cafe and it looked like a good place to start. I cut the sugar a bit, swapped whole wheat and almond flours for the white flour in the original recipe, added some more chocolate chips. It was simple. It was tasty. It made my son feel better. (The antibiotics helped, too.)

Ingredients

yield: one 11-inch cookie

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup Sucanat or brown sugar

1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled for about 15 minutes

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour

3/4 cup almond flour

2/3 cup chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Cream together the butter and sugars. Mix in the egg and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients and then fold in the chocolate chips.

Line a large baking pan—I used a jelly roll pan—with parchment paper. Press the dough into a 9' circle. (My dough was way too wet at first, more like a batter. I let it cool a bit more so that it was more like a sticky dough.) I found that putting a sheet of plastic wrap over the dough made it easier to spread, so it wouldn't all just stick to my fingers. I also sprinkled some of the chocolate chips over the top, so they wouldn't sink into the dough too much.

Bake for 13-19 minutes, until the cookie is a light, golden brown. NOTE: The original recipe suggests 13-16 minutes, but mine was still too doughy in the middle at that point, that why I'm listing a wider range. You'll have to peek at when your cookie looks ready. This is when your oven door's window comes in handy.

Let the cookie cool in the pan. If you try to take it out, it will fall apart. It should still taste fine, but won't look like a giant, pizza-sized cookie. And isn't that what we're all going for here?

I served mine on a pizza peel with my pizza cutter. It was cute, if I do say so myself. 

In other news, I've been nominated for the Top 25 Foodie Moms contest over at Circle of Moms. if you like this blog, if you like my recipes, or if you just have nothing better to do at this point in time, please head over there and vote for me. You don't have to register, or anything—just find Full Belly Sisters on the list (we're in the 20s now) and click "vote." Best part? You can vote every 24 hours! You know you want to.

And: thanks! I really do appreciate your support.