… or, as it says on my mom’s little recipe card: choco chip crisps!
I suddenly had a deep need to have these cookies the other night. I haven’t had them in years and years. They were a childhood fave and a big treat. Growing up with a mom who was a doctor meant we ate a lot of… healthy stuff.
Good thing: she made nearly everything we ate from scratch. We still call her the “nuts and berries” lady. 🙂
Bad thing: potato chips were pretty much non-existent in our childhood. Which is why these cookies were such a treat.
Another bad thing is, when you have a mom who’s English and a doctor it makes her recipe cards a challenge. I spent 20 minutes looking for potato chip cookies. Choco chips crisps got passed by about 20 times as I flipped through all the cards. Also, her hand writing is horrible. Like, take it down to the pharmacy and have them figure it out kind of handwriting. (sorry mom… I nearly took a photograph of the card!)
The recipe calls for nuts but I subbed toffee bits instead. I’ve never been a big one for nuts in my cookies unless they’re almonds or coconut and for some reason, almonds sounded too pretentious for potato chip cookies and coconut seemed too exotic. Really, walnuts are the only nuts you could use… walnuts are just a homey nut.
But I digress.
These are small, chewy cookies, sweet with just a hint of salt. They can be very addictive but I can’t be held responsible for any lack of willpower that might result…
Two tips for these cookies, consider cutting the sugar by about half a cup and, let these cool for a good 3-5 minutes on the cookie sheets. These are very chewy cookies and they become very messy if you remove them on to racks as soon as you take them out of the oven.
- 1 cup of butter (2 sticks)
- 1 cup lightly packed brown sugar
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 cups flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 cup chocolate chips
- ½ cup toffee bits or chopped nuts
- 2 cups of crushed potato chips
- preheat oven to 350F
- beat butter and sugars together until light and fluffy
- add eggs and vanilla and continue to mix until well blended
- in a separate bowl whisk together flour and baking soda
- add flour mixture to butter mixture and stir slowly until well combined
- add chocolate, toffee and potato chips and stir in by hand
- shape into ¾ inch balls and place on lined or greased cookies sheets
- bake for 12-14 minutes or until golden
- cool on cookie trays for a few minutes before transferring to wire cooking racks
Food Photography Tips
I shot all of these with the 24-70 2.8L lens I’ve been borrowing. I’m loving it – it’s not a true macro but it does let me get up quite close and still focus. I think I’d be better off still, if I had used a tripod (I didn’t for any of these photos).
Image 1: 1/100, f/4.0, 67mm, ISO 400, no exposure compensation
Image 2: 1/200, f/2.8, 70mm, ISO 800, no exposure compensation
Image 3: 1/40, f/10.0, 70mm, ISO1600, no exposure compensation
All the images were shot on manual. I had a reflector to the right of #2 and #3 reflecting light from the window on the left. Image 1, the reflector was at about 1pm and the window was at about 7pm. All were post processed using Florabella’s Classic Rich action but heavily modified to be toned down. I don’t think I’ll be using these actions again for food. It’s been fun playing with them but in the end, I know enough about what I’m doing to actually be much faster post processing in Lightroom on my own instead of moving to PS, runinng an action and then having to go through all the steps and change them anyway. I have tried them on some people shots though and they are beautiful.
Image 3… I don’t like at all… it feels way too bright and the cookie on top is practically glaring at me… I think that’s actually the post processing doing that. I have to go back and look. Don’t kid yourselves folks… cookies are hard to photograph being all flat and kind of hard to do anything with.
Quick tip on shooting overhead and Depth of Field (DOF). Notice how image 2 was shot with an f-stop (aperture) of 2.8 and only the toffee chips in the espresso cup are in focus. I did that on purpose because I wanted those toffee chips to stand out and a nice blur over everything else.
But in image 3, I used a much higher f-stop of 10.0 and almost the entire image is in focus. When you are shooting overhead and you want everything to be clear, you’re going to need that f-stop to be much higher to avoid a narrow, shallow depth of field (or more bluriness). Some would even argue you should go as high as f/18 of f/22 and depending on your lens and distance from the subject you may need to.
But, keep in mind that the larger your f-stop number the less light you have to work with, which means a much slower shutter speed and more risk of camera shake. You will need to raise your ISO, or bring in additional light, or shoot with a tripod… or all three. This is where you need to start playing to see what works best for the situation!
I’m so happy that you were able to decipher your mother’s handwriting and get these cookies baked! They look delicious. Being the nut lover than I am, I would probably go with the nuts first time around but would also be anxious to try them with the toffee bits too!
I would have like to see your mom’s handwriting on the recipe card…I’m nostalgic that way. Finally bought a food photography book…I confess I am intimidated. Thanks for the brief photo lesson here, I like the second photo a lot. I think small bites is how I’ll be working through this new book.
And you are done in 22 minutes! 🙂 Sounds perfect for impatient people (like myself).
ooh sweet and salty is such a dangerous combination for me! I love the part about looking for “potato chips” and passing over “crisps”
I would have no will power if I made these cookies. The toffee bits and the potato chips sound wonderful together, but I can never keep a whole package of toffee bits in my cupboard. They’re just too perfect for snacking on.
These cookies sound wonderful! I would love the sweet-salty taste. Yum!