Chocolate Chip Poppy Seed Cookies

I woke up to a mild thunderstorm today.  It’s a nice way to wake up, even though I usually hate rainy days.  But then I skateboarded the library, and it’s just warm and humid enough that I feel utterly disgusting.  I did see some streets I’d never been down before, though.

So yesterday, continuing our efforts to fight weekend lethargy, me and Haley made Chocolate Chip Poppy Seed Cookies, adapted from this Joy the Baker recipe.

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• A couple of spoons of chocolate peanut butter (we decided to put this in absolutely everything we bake) (optional)
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 3/4 to 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons poppy seeds
• 1 cup dark chocolate chips
• about 1/4 cup poppy seeds for rolling and coarse sea salt for topping

Directions:

Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.  Then add the softened butter and mix until well-combined.

This is not an example until well-combined, so mix until it looks better than this.  (I took a picture halfway through the mixing, okay.)  You could use an electric mixer if you want.  I was actually writing up the yesterday’s post while Haley was doing all of this, but she tends to ignore recipes and mix things together as she sees fit.

Add the egg and egg yolk and mix until well-combined.  Then add the vanilla and soy sauce.  Again, we skipped the vanilla.  Mix in the peanut butter if that’s what you want to do.  We found that it adds an extra kick to the flavor, making the cookies just a little more rich.

Then, add the sesame seeds and chocolate chips.  I should mention that we added both chocolate chunks and mini chocolate chips, and way more than the recipe called for.

It should look like this:

Form the dough into balls and coat evenly in a layer of poppy seeds.

Place on a cookie sheet and bake for about 10-15 minutes at 350 degrees.

Even when you make slightly bigger cookies like we did, the recipe should yield about 20-24 cookies.

Ready for the oven.

And done!  And delicious!  Seriously, these cookies, odd though they may be, will rock your face off.  They’re also very easy to make.  Warning: you will get poppy seeds stuck in your teeth, and it will be weird.  But damn, these are good cookies.