Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies

Welcome to my newly discovered love of cooking! You can take a hopefully

adventurous journey throughout my cooking life.

I'm only 18 but don't scoff, I can cook like

mad, especially with the benefits of a mom, sister, and grandma that always

know what they're talking about when it comes to a kitchen. Anyway, though I would

have liked to start off the blog with a truly scrumptious pie,

(if you caught that reference kudos to you), like a good little 50s-60s homemaker,

I've been craving these little beauties ever since I was still at art school.

So, get out your pots and pans, A-line dresses, and high heels.

We're gonna do some good old fashion 50s housewife cookin'.

So, ever since I can remember my mom has always made these delicious bits of heaven every fall. Who cares if it's winter, deliciousness transcends all seasons so go for it whether it be summer or spring or you've got a weird Monty Python scenario where

the seasons give spring and summer a skip and go straight into fall.

Anyway this recipe is a sort of hybrid of my mother's own recipe for these

cookies and one lovingly ripped off from my sister's blog Saving Taste.

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies

From Saving Taste and Holly Whalls

This recipe yields something like 2-3 dozen cookies, it doesn't look like all that much but I promise it is.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and cook for 10-12 minutes. (I know this sounds random but I've found that because of the delicate nature of the pumpkin, 14 or 15 minutes tends to take away the fluffy edge and they're just not as good.

Cream together:

- 1/2 cup butter (1 stick)

- 1/4 cup sugar

First cream these then add the rest of the ingredients starting with the eggs.

- 2 eggs

- 1 cup brown sugar

- 1 cup pureed pumpkin (Make sure not to get pumpkin pie filling, you want 100% pure pumpkin. Unless you're pureeing your own pumpkin in which case you may be a superhero.)

- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

Mix in separate bowl:

- 2 cups of flour

- 3 teaspoons cinnamon

- 1/2 teaspoon salt

- 1/2 teaspoon cloves

- 1/2 teaspoon all spice

- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

- 1/2 teaspoon ginger

- a pinch pinch cardamom (because this is expensive it's optional; I did not use it this time.)

- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Mix both mixtures thoroughly then add 1 cup of chocolate chips. My mom likes to add a whole bag of Tollhouse chocolate chips which is I think 1 1/2 cups, but either way it's delicious. Be careful when baking, the cookies won't change color from the batter so it will still seem like dough even when they're fully cooked.

(TIP: If you find yourself short some of these spices the cloves, all spice, nutmeg, ginger, and cardamom can be substituted for 1 tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice. That's the main differing factor of my mom and my sister's recipes. This time I used all of the separate spices and the cookies were delicious but my mom's were always just as good.)

Your blots of dough can be relatively small because of the fluffy nature of the cookies, I got 16 cookies per sheet.

Hope they're as delicious for you as they were for me. I recommend listening to an array of 50s and 60s music while baking or cooking...it lends a happy tone and who doesn't like to dance while they cook?

The batter should be completely mixed and creamy.

Dough balls don't need to be that large because of the fluffiness of the cookies.