Crazy Cookie Night

This post is sponsored by Influenster and Country Crock. We received free product for testing purposes, but all opinions are my own. This post also includes affiliate links, which means I earn a small commission (at no cost to you) if you purchase anything using my links.

I was excited when I was picked for the Country Crock VoxBox from Influenster, especially after I watched this video.

Why hadn’t I thought of this before?? A base recipe then let everyone add their own special ingredients?? My lovely 15 year old niece decided to spend her Spring Break with us so I thought it would be really fun to include her in this activity, and I thought FOR SURE my 5 and 3 year old would LOVE “Crazy Cookie Night”.

This was our base recipe provided by Country Crock:

Then I gathered a variety of things the girls could choose for their mix ins:

• chocolate chips
• marshmallows
• sprinkles
• pre-cooked bacon
• breakfast cereal
• sliced almonds
• dried cranberries

It was almost like the video, except instead of happy kids that work together, take turns and laugh when they drop eggs and spill flour it was more whining, crying, screaming “IT’S MY TURN!!!” “No, I don’t WANT her to do it!”

Ahhh, well, we can’t have everything, can we? =) They did give in and settle a bit once I suggested EVERYONE put their hands on the bowl or measuring cup while we dump it in the mixer. Win/win….sort of.

While playing referee to the two littles I double and triple checked that I mixed all the ingredients noted, and at the right amounts. (Not gonna lie, it’s rare I don’t make some sort of mistake when reading recipes. I’d like to blame it all on the kids but I distinctly remember making a birthday cake for my Grandma when I was maybe 10 and my eyes skipped around or something and I added multiple teaspoons of SALT when making the frosting. =( So this problem goes way back.)

Speaking of my Grandma, I always LOVED her white KitchenAid mixer and I was thrilled to get one myself. It is by far one of my favorite kitchen tools and worth every penny!

I really questioned it when I got done mixing the dough. The recipe says the dough will be soft and creamy, but I found it to be soft and maybe more taffy-like(?) than creamy. Aaliyah agreed it looked a bit off, but we figured oh well, on with it! The kids got busy creating their own personal cookie concoctions.

Top to bottom, left to right here are the personalized mix-ins:

Elliott – red and blue sugar sprinkles, candy dots, and chocolate chips
Kayden – mini colored marshmallows, chocolate chips, and blue sugar sprinkles
Aaliyah – chocolate chips, pre-cooked bacon
Me – chocolate chips, pre-cooked bacon, almond slivers

Side note: I was surprised the kids didn’t go more crazy with their selections, especially since last year Kayden begged to play something she saw called “pizza challenge”. You put various ingredients in brown paper bags, blindly choose and make your pizzas. Her pizza had cheese its, cheese, and vegetables. Mine had coconut flakes, Dijon mustard, and pepperoni. (Either she got really lucky or she peeked! Yuck!)

So, yeah, I fully expected to see some CRAZY cookies, but I think Aaliyah and I were the most creative with the pre-cooked bacon. But I digress…

The recipe says to use rounded teaspoons, but I used my medium Pampered Chef Scoop to make 4 cookies of each mix.  Here they are going in to the oven…

…and they looked pretty much the same coming out. LOL

The dough did not really spread like I expected it to, but they actually turned out just fine. We each sampled our own cookie recipes, and the verdict was….drumroll please….

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Thumbs up from all of us!

I was happily surprised that even though I thought I might have messed up mixing the dough (but I don’t think I actually did) it turned out just fine. I’m not sure I used enough bacon to really notice it much, to be honest. I probably noticed the almond slivers the most. I tried a bite of Aaliyah’s to see if hers was more bacony since she didn’t add almonds, but it was about the same as mine. The marshmallows added a nice chewiness to Kayden’s cookies, and I haven’t tried Elliott’s cookies, but I’m sure they are just as delicious. I mean, chocolate chips and tons of extra sugar? Totally fine.

All in all this was a fun experience, even though I threatened more than once I’d never make cookies again if the girls didn’t behave and get along. HAHA! Whatevs. They knew that wouldn’t hold up. I think this would be really fun for our get togethers with the neighborhood kids. In that case I’d probably make the base dough myself (yay, no arguing!), then set out a bunch of bowls of random mix-ins and let the kids go crazy.

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My review of Country Crock: I enjoyed the opportunity to try this again as we mostly use straight butter these days. However, Country Crock is one of our top picks if we go for a spread. I like how it stays soft even when it’s refrigerated, and I’ve always liked the flavor. I love it on hot toasted bread or bagels. Mmmm, hot buttered carbs!!! =)

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