Originally Posted by asianthree (Post 2455681)

Original recipe was just her homemade cocoa and chipped chocolate. My guess was not sweetened because they only used honey. Even with bitter chocolate the honey takes over. Fair warning cookies with honey never get hard. So always soft. I hate soft cookies because that’s all I had growing up with no sugar everything honey. That why I have tried to convert to sugar but they just won’t release from molds.

When the kids were small I used her sweet homemade chocolate and cocoa. As they got older we added dark semi sweet. So it became triple chocolate, then one year the boys were eating cherries i dried and wanted to add them. So triple chocolate Traverse City Cookies was invented.
Today they used freshly dried cranberries, so no chopping. Oldest has taken the recipe higher level and added rolled oats.

My southern roots cooking was teacup, dessert spoon, saucer, knob, pinch, smidgen, handful, dollop, and a glob. Although baking is supposed to be a science, by background is far from it. My Blackberry jam cake recipe is over 150yo that I swear weighs 5lb. My aunt made 15 with only a wooden spoon every Christmas. I damn near killed my 28lb lift Kitchen Aid with that recipe.

Originally Posted by Aces4 (Post 2455686)

Lol, that's so cool and I'll bet your muscular aunt did even harder work than that. I like the dried cranberries idea, those are always in our pantry for tossing over our salads. I also thought we might try adding chopped nuts which I enjoy in cookies. We'd better try the recipe out before we start adding to it. Thanks again.

Originally Posted by asianthree (Post 2455694)

My aunt was 98lbs but farm raised, so there’s that. You will notice there isn’t a baking power or soda in the recipe. I don’t know if not available or My guess is not needed when using cookie mold.
I would try adding at least 1/4 teaspoon of either if you are using a sheet pan.

Originally Posted by Bill14564 (Post 2455284)

Yeah, I did consider that.

I can buy three cookies...

OR

I can buy five pounds of flour, five pounds of sugar, a bag of brown sugar, a box of salt, tins of baking soda and cinnamon, a lemon to squeeze, a bottle of vanilla extract, a bag of walnuts, and a dozen eggs. Then I buy electricity to heat the oven for an hour. When I'm done I'll have a couple dozen cookies but I will have spent more than just buying three.

Sometimes I would rather pay more per cookie at somewhere like Crumbl than buy all the supplies I would need to make two dozen of each of the varieties available at Crumbl.

There is a price for convenience - sometimes it is worth it.

Originally Posted by margaretmattson (Post 2455844)

Where do you buy your pantry items? Sur La Table or a different expensive store? $5 - $6 per cookie at Crumbl, your list of pantry items is relatively the same cost. However, after making two dozen cookies, you have remaining staples to use. The remaining eggs can be used for breakfast, or hard boiled for salads or lunch. Walnuts can be used dozens of ways not only for desserts. Cinnamon can be sprinkled onto toast, cereal, into tea or coffee. Or, a cinnamon glaze can be made to serve with sweet potatoes. Sugar and lemon will make lemonade or a lemon curd to top on fresh scones. Brown sugar and vanilla will make an excellent caramel sauce. Of course, several more baked goods can be made. They can be frozen to eat at a later date if you choose. There are hundreds and hundreds of ways to use pantry staples. In the long run, buying the pantry staples is the better option. However, I realize some do not know how to cook. Most likely, they will throw the remaining pantry staples away.If this is your case, enjoy those Crumbl cookies!

Originally Posted by Bill14564 (Post 2455894)

Looking at it that way, I can make cookies at home for free. If I previously bought all those pantry items for the purposes you list above then the money is already spent. The items are sitting in my house waiting to be used and if I don't use them soon some of them will spoil and need to be discarded. I don't have to spend any money to make the cookies, the ingredients are already in my home, but I could even look at it as if it was putting money back into my pocket since I used the items rather than throwing them away.

I didn't want to inventory my house, I didn't want to get in my steps walking the grocery store aisles, I didn't want to have my AC battle my oven over the room temperature, I didn't want to find space in my freezer to store unbaked dough, I didn't want to rearrange the dirty dishes in my dishwasher to make room for the mixing bowl and baking sheets, and I didn't want to page through cookbooks looking to find recipes to use the leftover pantry items. I just wanted three cookies with different flavors.