Perfect Pudding Chocolate Chip Cookies–and My New Site!

I’m beaming with the power of a thousand and fifty-two suns as I type this, so here it is:

Wallflour Girl has moved to a self-hosted site and domain! Ta-da! *drums bells and whistles*

Everything you see here–the new layout, design, even this beautiful new visual recipe index–I created. I know, right? Scary.

So if you were wondering why it’s been so quiet around here lately, it’s because two weeks’ worth of late-night CSS/HTML epic battles were happening in this tiny madhouse apartment. You might like to take some time to browse around all the new menu pages and content, even, if you catch my drift!

***Please make sure you update your RSS feed/email subscription on the right-hand sidebar! I’ve also finally got my social media groove on, so please follow me on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter while your mouse is clicky-clicking over there.*** (I’m especially obsessed with tweeting at the moment, sooo you have been warned #honeymoonphase #relationshipwithTwitter)

Done? Great! Can’t wait to see y’all on the social side–now, read on!

After nearly two years of blogging, I finally built a snowman up the courage and cyber-smarts to purchase my own domain. My awesome, computer-savvy friend Shawn helped me transfer my site and set up my new self-hosted blog, which has been going through tons of exciting design/format changes these past weeks, as you might have noticed. How do you like them so far?

I especially want to apologize to you fantastic folks who have been emailing me all week frantically asking for recipes since all of my links were down during the crazy domain move. I have to admit, I was panicking a bit myself from all the technological hubbub that tried to eat my brains a la zombie (I’ve survived–barely–thanks for asking). I’m so glad so many of you reached out to me about it, though! That is exactly the right thing to do, and I’m grateful to be reminded just how many eyes come across this blog every single day.

I’m back now and ready to write again, though–boy, am I ever!

Apart from blogging, there are a few other pretty exciting things are in the works as well that I haven’t told you guys about. Now that I’m finally back at school for good instead of prancing around the globe like a vagabond unicorn, I’ve been spending ample time these days researching and writing papers for not one, but two upcoming children’s literature conferences–which is always a blast because children’s lit scholars really are the coolest kids-at-heart on the block.

This means I’ve been hard at work meeting professors, reading secondary texts, and preparing my critical study of believability, fantasy, and knowledge systems in Stuart Little. I know what you’re thinking. Work, eh? If you said that my job sometimes rocks harder than a 7.1 earthquake, I would have to agree with you 117%.

I’m also taking my first ever photography lessons from this amazing man Raiko Hartma—who (as it turns out!) actually taught in the same media/digital program I taught two years ago…and I didn’t even remember it. D’oh! Anyway, you’ll want to keep your eyes banana-peeled for some fun shots these upcoming weeks, because the stuff this guy does and teaches is amazing.

The final thing. I’m going to be spending a lot of time on these weeks not only posting recipes, developing recipes, and giving updates on a much more regular basis but praying super fervently to the Cyber-Gods of Everything Internetty brushing up on my web design, social media, content, and marketing as well. Wallflour Girl has been pining away for a makeover since Miley Cyrus chopped off all her hair two years ago. No wait, when was that even? Never mind–I stopped paying attention to pop culture since relevant celebrities suddenly became wayyyy younger than me (see #20 here). I considered hiring a designer for a while, but in all honesty I blog because I love every aspect of it: the writing, the photographing, the baking, and now–designing. I’m fairly new to this type of thing, so I’d love to hear what you guys think as you continue checking back here for more updates!

Speaking of major excitement, though, it’s high time to share these perfect pudding chocolate chip cookies with you. I know you know that I know that you’ve heard everything there is to hear about the fabled pudding cookie. No? Well, just in case, here’s the run-down…

Puffy. Like, insanely puffy. The dry instant pudding mix acts much in the same way as cornstarch (it does, in fact, contain cornstarch!), making these cookies super pillowy but still…

Chewy. Yeah, no cakiness in this cookie! Even though it’s puffy as heck, not a dry crumb will be found in them cookie parts. Annnd it is also…

Thick. Because are we looking at the same photos here or what.

It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that I finally caved into the hype and tried making this pudding cookie. Bingo and shebam–knocked the socks and shorts right off my friends. And while I’m still heels-over-head with My Favorite Thick & Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, the visual drama of these pudding cookies is great for eliciting those coveted oohs and aahs when you walk in the door with your cookie plate and the Lord of the Rings theme song drumming with all the fury of Mordor behind you. At least that’s how I like to imagine myself when I walk into a room. And these cookies basically taste like what the LotR theme song would taste like if it were edible, i.e. EPIC. So. If you’re like me and have waited all this time as a Pudding Cookie Skeptic, learn from my mistake. Bookmark. Pin. Bake. And bake again. And again. This is for your own good, little Hobbit. As our dear friend Benedict says in his sultry bass voice….Promise.

Since everything’s been so crazy around here with blog moving and designing, I’m going to let you guys off early as long as you promise to head to your kitchen and make these pronto. Oh, and next week’s post will deal with another pretty big event that happened recently, and that has got me really excited to expand my blog (as well as my baking/blogging resume–but more on that with photos then!). Because you have subscribed, right? Right. Just thought I’d put that out there as a little nugget to look forward to….

^ And okay, I was going to end my post there but couldn’t stop cringing over the dangling participle at the end of that sentence. Because that’s what being an English grad student has done to me. But it would be awkward to say “as a little nugget to which you should look forward,” so now I’m just going to shut up and go back to reading Stuart Little over a pan of these uh-may-zing cookies.

Happy baking!

How do you like my new blog layout? Any suggestions/comments? 🙂

Perfect Pudding Chocolate Chip Cookies–and My New Domain!!

If you love thick, soft, and perfectly pillowy but chewy chocolate cookies, you'd better get on board the pudding cookie bandwagon! The visual drama of these tall soft-baked cookies is sure to get oohs and aahs from your next cookie event audience.

Print

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 3/4 cup dark (or light) brown sugar, tightly packed
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 (3.4 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix*
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Optional cream cheese filling:

• 1 (8 ounce) block cream cheese, softened
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

1. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until light and fluffy (about 2 minutes of vigorous creaming by hand).
2. Add pudding mix and mix until blended in.
3. Beat in eggs and vanilla extract.
4. Add flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir in until dry ingredients are just incorporated into the wet ingredients. Fold in chocolate chips.
5. Cover bowl with cling wrap and chill in refrigerator for at least two hours.*
6. When you're ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a baking sheet.
7. Form 1-inch balls of dough using an ice cream scoop or your hands. Place dough 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheet.
8. Bake in preheated oven for 9-11 minutes, until the edges have just set and centers are still slightly jiggly. Remove sheet from oven and allow cookies to continue cooling/baking for 20 minutes on the warm stovetop--this will help you achieve that ideal thick, soft-baked quality in your pudding cookies.
9. Serve these sinfully soft cookies and watch your audience melt like pudding in your talented baker hands!

For the optional cream cheese filling:

1. If you'd like to add an extra dimension to your standard pudding chocolate chip cookies, cream together all cream cheese filling ingredients in a medium bowl until smooth. As you portion out your cookie dough balls (see above), spoon about 1 teaspoon of cream cheese filling into the center of the dough, then wrap dough around filling to form a sealed ball. Bake dough as directed above.

Notes

Be sure to use instant cook vanilla pudding mix, NOT cook-and-serve pudding mix.

If you're in a pinch, you can chill your dough in the freezer for 30 minutes instead of in the refrigerator. If you decide to skip the chilling step altogether, note that this may result in slightly flatter cookies than pictured.

© Wallflour Girl. All images and content are copyright protected. Please do not use without prior permission. If you would like to republish this recipe, please link back to this post.