My cookies won an award!

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enjoy baking.  Anyone who follows this blog would know that.  Lately, I’ve been so busy that baking has fallen by the wayside.  Super bummer!  Right?

Every year, I look forward to baking a variety of Christmas cookies.  But this year, it just wasn’t in the cards.

Well guess what?! As part of our office “holiday party” there would also be a cookie tasting contest.  O.M.G.  If there’s one thing I like more than baking, it’s competing.  Well, I actually just like winning (losing seriously sucks, and whoever said that everyone’s a winner is a liar).

Since I didn’t really have much time to bake, I whipped up my go to best dessert ever.  It’s the best dessert ever because people love it and it’s really easy.

I made it festive with holiday sprinkles.  Boom.

And guess what?  I won!  Too bad I was in a meeting and missed the announcement.  But that’s ok, I was pretty pumped.  So without further adieu, here’s my “Award Winning” cookie recipe. (There are many versions of this out on the web, I got the recipe from my mom who got it from a friend.  I did not come up with this brilliant combination….I merely executed the recipe.)

Ingredients
Saltine Crackers (2 sleeves is typically sufficient)
2 sticks of butter (1 cup)
1/2 cup of light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1.5 cups of chocolate chips (I use ghirardelli semi sweet chips)
1 cup of toasted slivered almonds (I buy them raw and toast them myself, be careful, they burn easily)
Festive holiday sprinkles (optional)
Jelly Roll Pan
Foil

Instructions
1.  Line the jelly roll pan with foil and line up the saltine crackers in a nice, even pattern, filling the entire pan.
2.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees
3.  Melt the butter and sugar in a saucepan over medium to medium high heat.  Stir constantly.  It’ll look a little separated but don’t worry, it’ll eventually combine.
4.  Once the mixture starts to boil and come together, set a timer for 3 minutes.
5.  When the timer goes off, pour the mixture over the crackers and spread evenly.  I like to use an offset spatula for this.
6.  Put the pan in the oven for ~10 min.  Keep an eye on it so it doesn’t burn.
7.  Remove the pan and pour the chocolate chips on top.  Wait about 2 minutes and then start spreading the chocolate.  At this point, the chocolate should be nice and melty.
8.  Once you’ve spread your chocolate, sprinkle the nuts and festive sprinkles over the top.
9.  Let cool (it takes a few hours at room temp….or a lot less in the fridge)
10.  Break apart and store (or eat).

PS It was a blind tasting, so they had no idea which ones were mine!  That means they were judged on taste alone and my winning personality did not play into the decision 🙂  They were gone by the time I arrived at the party.  The mark of a great cookie!