Fail Proof Recipe

I've loved my mom's Cowboy Cookie recipe for my whole life.  I've found that it's a very forgiving recipe and nothing could have proved that more than last night.

It was Family Home Evening and Jarett suggested making a quadruple batch of cookies as a family.  Of course, he had to take off after only a couple minutes, but he got the girls going on cracking the eggs and tidied up dinner while I got started. 

I softened the butter, added the sugar and vanilla and then the eggs.  Of course, the girls had spilled most of one of the eggs on the counter and floor, but I figured that 7 1/2 out of 8 eggs probably would've affect the recipe too much.  I was grateful that I was quadrupling the recipe, cleaned up the mess and moved on.

When I grabbed the flour, I put it on the counter and turned around to grab the measuring cups.  In that split second, Benson managed to climb up on the counter, open the flour and take the scoop out of it and dump a bunch in the bowl.  How much?  I have no idea.  I guesstimated that it was between 1/2 a cup and a full cup, added the rest and moved on.

I put the flour away, and grabbed the baking soda, baking powder and salt while I was already in the pantry.  (I can never remember if it's soda or powder that I add, so I took both out just to be safe).  I turned around again - to get the measuring spoons and consult the recipe.  I turned around and Benson had put literally half the box of Baking Soda into the bowl.  I may have told every one to evacuate the kitchen while I finished up at this point.  I had to take off the lid and rinse it off (causing more moisture in the recipe than normal), and start scooping out the baking soda, debating how much had already been dissolved and how much I should keep on to make sure I got my 4 tsp worth in there.  There was so much left that when I took a pinch of the dough to check on it, I started getting little burps of fizz from the excess Baking Soda.  It was BAD.

I started to lose it a little and just throw things in.  EVERYTHING in.  I knew the rest of the ingredients were all just 1 tsp (x4 - so 4 tsp), so I put them all in and then realized THERE IS NO BAKING POWDER IN THIS RECIPE!  It was already mixed in though, so there wasn't very much I could do.  In goes the oats and the chocolate chips.

As I put the dough on the cookie sheets, I noticed a fizzing type sound with each scoop of the spoon.  It was NOT going to be good.  BUT - I was pleasantly surprised.  It made a LOT of cookies (with Jarett's help, we got some monster sized cookies while I put the boys to bed... between the excess raising ingredients and the extra large scoops, he pretty much filled the entire cookie sheet like it was a cake) and they were good!  Good enough that I felt comfortable to bring some to Kienna's Cello teacher (who said they tasted fantastic) and we'll be freezing them to have over the next few weeks.

If that doesn't prove a recipe to be 100% fail proof, I don't know what does.  I think I could start a business like this.  Just ask me (with the 5 kids) to test a recipe.  If it makes it through, it's fail-safe!!