I, along with half of America, am having a really bad week. Actually, I’m having a really bad year. To combat the post-election blues and the everyday-blues, I’ve been shoveling assorted junk into my mouth and slowly gaining weight that I swear I’m going to lose. Going along with this week’s themes of regret, disappointment, and remorse, I almost ruined a relatively simple chocolate chip cookie recipe. They ended up being perfectly chewy in the middle and crispy around the edges though.

Here is my recipe for disaster.

Step 1: Melt 1 stick of butter (aka 1/2 cup) in the microwave. Then whisk in 1/2 cup of packed brown sugar, 1/4 cup of white sugar, a teaspoon of salt, and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. After the mixture is uniform, mix in 1 egg yolk.

Step 2: Then, combine 1/2 cup of flour with 3/4 teaspoon of baking soda (look at the tiny whisk!!!!). Whisk in the dry ingredients into the wet mixture (with the normal-sized whisk).

Processed with VSCO with a6 preset

Processed with VSCO with a6 preset

Step 3: Mix in 1 cup of flour with a silicone spatula or a wooden spoon. This is where I messed up. In the words of Gob Bluth, I’ve made a huge mistake. The recipe I loosely followed originally calls for 1/3 cup of pumpkin puree, which I omitted this time. However, I didn’t adjust the flour accordingly because I am an idiot, and the dough became pretty dry. Panicking, I whisked another egg yolk and added half of it into the dough. Then I added another 2 or 3 tablespoons of melted butter into the mixture. The dough became very shiny and slippery, since the gluten already began to develop after the initial combination of wet and dry ingredients (because chemistry). I crossed my fingers and mixed in 2/3 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips. The

Step 4: I separated about 1/3 of the dough and mixed in some crushed pretzels because I’m an interesting person, dang it! I covered both of the dough bowls and let them chill in the fridge for about 30 minutes, and preheated the oven to 350°F.

Step 5: To shape the cookies, roll about 1 rounded tablespoon of the dough into a ball and flatten it into an oblong disk, like a cow patty. Then roll a slightly smaller ball and smash it on top. Bake the cookies one tray at a time, for an undisclosed amount of minutes. The oven timer stopped working during BOTH batches, but I am going to guess it took between 12 and 15 minutes until the edges became golden. Just take them out when they look ready, jeez.

Step 6: Once the cookies are out of the oven, they look like flat turds. To make them look more like all-American chocolate chip cookies, press a few extra chocolate chips into each one while they are still hot. Let the cookies sit on the pan for a few minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack.

The pretzel cookies didn’t spread as flat as the regular chocolate chip batch (because physics), but the added crunch is nice.

Oktoberfest Moose agrees. (No he doesn’t, because he can’t eat chocolate. Loser.)

@meemoomoose