As I’ve probably mentioned before, I tend to bake when I get restless.  Judging from most of my blog entries, I get restless a lot.  But there’s also the fact that I like to have a little something sweet in the evenings and instead of opting for a couple cookies made by some questionable elven folk, I prefer to satisfy my sweet tooth with a couple small creations of my own.  One, because as we established, I’m already restless and it’s something to do, and two, because I’m very much in a place where I prefer to know exactly what’s in my food and to eat food that’s…well, recognizable and pronounceable.

So the other night, I had one of these moments.  A little voice in my head said, “Bake something,” which I figure is better than a little voice in my head telling me to “burn things.”  Hopefully, anyway.  And after looking through my pantry, which is getting a little low on things–like eggs–, and then flipping through my Evernote cookbook, I finally settled on a classic: sugar cookies.

Like I said in the grilled cheese sandwich post, Fall totally revs up my need for comforting foods and sugar cookies are one of them.  While chocolate chip cookies are my absolute no-exceptions favorite cookie of all time, sugar cookies hold a special spot.  When I was a kid, my mom used to make sugar cookies at Christmas and I would help…so that I could steal bits of the raw dough and eat them while watching my sister play Super Mario Bros.  The 80s were a magical time indeed.  So I love them because of that memory but to be honest, I don’t like to bake them often because one, they often require a lot more time and rolling and whatnot and two, they don’t have chocolate on them.

Well this recipe addresses both of those points.  Both.

The cookie part is a recipe I got from AllRecipes.  Simple, easy, quick.  I used sugar-in-the-raw instead of plain white sugar, which gave them a darker, more speckled coloring.  Tasty all on their own, especially with milk.  But still lacking that all-important second point–lacking chocolate.

Luckily that’s an easy fix: drizzle chocolate on top! In fact, I’m of the opinion that most of baking’s (and life in general) problems can be solved by the simple phrase, drizzle chocolate on top.  Kids don’t want to eat their veggies?  Drizzle chocolate on top. Hate plain old boring chicken?  Drizzle chocolate on top.  Souffle caved in?  Drizzle chocolate on top.  Bam. Done.

The chocolate in this case was a cup of semisweet chocolate chips, melted, with a bit of canola oil added to thin it out a bit.  You don’t want to add liquids to chocolate that you’re melting, because it’ll just seize and get disgusting and unusable.  But you can add oil and that will thin out your chocolate sauce so that it’s easy to drizzle over the top of…well, anything.  (See previous paragraph)  And then you can make fun designs and edible ink-blot tests.

Easy Sugar Cookies
from Allrecipes.com

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in egg and vanilla. Gradually blend in the dry ingredients. Roll rounded teaspoonfuls of dough into balls, and place onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden. Let stand on cookie sheet two minutes before removing to cool on wire racks.
Chocolate Sauce for drizzling (on anything)
1 c. semisweet chocolate chips
1 tbsp canola oil

Fill a medium pot with about an inch of water and set over medium heat on the stove.  Put chocolate chips in a heat-proof bowl and place bowl on top of pot.  As the water simmers, the steam will slowly melt the chocolate.  Stir as needed.  Drizzle in oil slowly, mixing well, until chocolate has reached desired consistency.  Dip a spoon in the chocolate and then drizzle it over the top of cooled cookies.  (I usually put my cookies on a cooling rack that has a sheet of parchment paper underneath for easy cleanup.) Let sit and harden for at least an hour.  Eat.  Share.  Enjoy.