Potato Chip Cookies

Each semester during parent-teacher conference week, our school's PTG looks for volunteers to bake and cook for the teachers, who work through the evening hours. Given that cooking and baking is my kind of volunteering, I always try to make something, at least one dessert and one meal. After a few rounds of cookies for various functions at the school in addition to this, I feel I've established myself as a decent baker in particular--so I have decided that from here on out I am going to use them as my guinea pigs.

Sammy and I went cookie cookbook browsing, searching for those cookies that although they sounded good, would not necessarily be made under normal circumstances. Cookies we were curious about. These fit the bill perfectly, because although I think salty and sweet are a marriage made in heaven, my husband does not. And indeed he took one bite of these cookies and would not eat any more (!).

I on the other hand found them dangerously addictive, like shortbread plus potato chips and yet much better than that sounds. And if I was feeling insecure at all after John's rejection (although truly he was nice about it), I felt a lot better after a friend of mine told me that her older son's teacher had gushed to her about these amazing potato chip cookies, and how she had sneaked out at every possible break, hoping there would still be more left.

So I guess some people love them!

The recipe did not contain any guidelines about what kind of potato chips to use, so I went with our standby, Cape Cod Reduced Fat Kettle Cooked chips. The reduction in fat comes from the baking/frying method, not any weird additives. I do find them less salty than other chips though so I added a bit of coarse salt to the dough. I think I was a tad overzealous in my rolling of the cookie dough in potato chips, as I used a ton more than Krystina Castella called for. Of course one person's overzealous is another person's perfect, so just roll to taste.


Potato Chip Cookies
Closely adapted from Crazy About Cookies, Kristina Castella

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 t vanilla
1/4 t coarse salt, optional, see notes above
2 cups (252 g) AP flour
2 cups (200 g) coarsely crushed chips, divided (or more, to taste, see notes above)
coarse salt and sugar for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 325 F. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment or silicone. Set aside.

Beat the butter and sugar until fluffy (add the salt here if using). Mix in the vanilla, and then the flour and 1 cup of the potato chips. Mix well to thoroughly incorporate the chips but do not overmix.

Using a cookie scoop or spoons, shape the dough into 1 inch balls and then roll them in the remaining crushed potato chips. Place on the cookie sheet about 2 1/2 inches apart ( ibaked 12 cookies to a sheet). Press on the cookie balls slightly to flatten just a bit. Sprinkle them with coarse salt and/or sugar, to your taste (I liked both).

Bake for 12-15 minutes; the cookies will not get particularly dark, just lightly browned. Let cool on the cookie sheets for 5 minutes before moving to a cooling rack to cool completely.