Deez corn nuts

My Portland baking companions Aly and Kathleen recently introduced me to the most delicious cookies I have had in a long time: compost cookies. I had heard of these miraculous treats (notably from baking queen Julie), but never bothered to look into them too much. The ones A and K sent had chocolate chips and what I first thought was corn flakes, but later discovered to be POTATO CHIPS. YES. I ate about 4 of the cookies in one sitting, and finished the rest throughout the day (with some help from Dani).

In the week following this most amazing cookie gift, producing a similarly creative compost-type cookie became an obsession for me and Dani. On one grocery store trip we purchased chocolate chips, potato chips, chocolate pudding, corn nuts, avocados and PBR. We did no research on how one goes about constructing a compost cookie - from the taste/appearance I assumed the recipe closely resembled that of basic chocolate chip cookies, with the addition of some form(s) of salty relief. Having subsequently read a bit about compost cookie theory, I feel that our lack of knowledge was in the spirit of compost cookie making. We bought what looked good (?) and blindly sprinted into the realm of throwing random junk food into dough.

After this bout of mania, our enthusiasm waned slightly. Aside from devouring >3/4 of the bag of corn nuts one evening (a traumatizing occurrence), we more or less forgot about our grand plans. Until beer pong time rolled around (a friend of mine recently started a beer pong league. Don't be jealous). This would be the venue to experiment with cookies. As soon as I got home from work on the night of scheduled beer pong I pulled a stick of butter and an egg from the fridge and...

Tooth Breaker Cookies

* 1 stick butter (I went with normal over unsalted, as I usually do with choc chip cookies)
* 1/2 cup brown sugar
* 1/4 cup white sugar
* 1 egg
* 1 tsp vanilla
* 1 cup + 3 tbsp flour (slightly less flour would probably work, especially if you like your cookies on the thin/chewy side)
* 1 tsp baking soda
* 1 cup (or so) chocolate chips
* 1/2 cup (or so) plain corn nuts

Note: I did not add any extra salt in this recipe. Salt is a crucial component of all chocolate chip-esque cookies, but the high sodium content (like, really high) of corn nuts and salted butter seemed to suffice in this case.

Preheat oven ton 350˚ F.

Cream butter and sugars. Wooden spoon style is always most rewarding. Beat in the egg and then vanilla. Once well combined, add the flour and baking soda (note: the compost cookie recipes I looked at subsequently called for baking powder, some in addition to and some instead of baking soda. If I understood the difference between the two I would comment on this. Since I do not understand the difference, I went with baking soda, which is traditional in chocolate chip cookies). Mix well until dough is formed.

Pour in the chocolate chips and corn nuts. Mix well. Place balls of dough on cookie sheet. Bake for 10-ish minutes (less for softer and chewier, longer for crispier and dryer).

Serve with beer. Or on their own. Note: Dani insisted on killing the element of surprise by telling/warning everyone about the corn nuts they were about to encounter, claiming she wanted to protect people from chipping their teeth. I have never known someone to break a tooth on a corn nut (even a surprise corn nut). I will, however, certainly be using her suggestion of adding more corn nuts and crushing them slightly before adding them when I recreate these cookies. This will happen as soon as I can face a bag of corn nuts again...