Butter Makes Everything Better {19}

I have mentioned before that while prego I discovered a love for baking (and lets be honest eating those baking efforts). One of my forte's is just regular old chocolate chip cookies. I have secret tricks (and every time I say this I silently think of the line in Mr. Deeds "never underestimate the power of my sneakiness"). Anyway...my secrets shall remain with me but the recipe below is for you and yours. :)

I recently got a little bored with just plain old chocolate chip cookies...so I played with the recipe a little and found that these cookies/cookie bars not only work, they are positively scrumptious!!

White Chocolate Chip Almond Cookies

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 cup butter, softened (2 sticks)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs

1 package white chocolate chips

*1/2-1 cup of toasted almonds

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Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Combine flour, salt and baking soda in a mixing bowl and set aside.

*Spread 1/2 cup-1 cup of sliced almonds onto a baking sheet. Lightly toast in oven (or toaster oven), approximately 2 minutes should do. Set aside and let cool to room temperature.

Beat brown sugar, granulated sugar, softened butter, and vanilla until creamy. Add eggs and continue to beat until mixture is fluffy. Slowly stir in the dry ingredients. Add the white chocolate chips and COOLED almonds. Stir together until well blended.

Drop spoonfuls onto a baking sheet and bake 8-10 minutes (or until your version of cookie doneness) :) Move to a cooling rack and wait patiently until they are perfectly cool and them eat the entire tray. Do not pass GO, do not collect $100, just EAT THE WHOLE TRAY! It won't be hard, I promise! HA! Just kidding, I should be a comedian, I know... HA!

I have also done this same recipe and baked the entire mixture in a greased 9x9 square pan to make cookie bars. This version is equally as good. :) In this case you may want to turn your oven to 375 degrees. If you feel the center isn't getting done, turn that baby up!

Enjoy!

**Note, I used the Nestle Toll House recipe for their chocolate chip cookies as my dough batter. I am not trying to get in trouble for copyright infringement or anything. Just trying to make a cookie people! :)