Pudding Cookies

I needed a last minute cookie to take to a party. Having made Chocolate Scotcharoos earlier in the week, I was planning to make a second batch with the left over chips. I reconsidered and decided I wanted to go with a more traditional cookie, but had to use what was left in my pantry. Enter Pudding Cookies which I used as 'garbage' cookies. A catch all for all the leftovers in my pantry.

Pudding cookie ingredients, including my pantry 'garage' of chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, and walnuts.

I started my recipe search by trying to find recipes that would use Butterscotch Chips. I also went to the Nestle website where I first found this recipe for Pudding Chip Cookies. Once I saw that, I did an internet search for Pudding Cookies and found many many variations using many many mix-ins. I finally decided to use the Pudding Chip Cookie recipe with my own mix-ins. (I picked this recipe because it produced two dozen cookies while many of the others made upwards of 4 dozen!)

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 pkg. (3.5 oz) instant vanilla pudding mix

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 large egg and 1 egg white

Mix-ins:

1 cup chocolate chips

1 cup butterscotch chips

1/2 cup chopped walnuts (this was dictated by what I had on hand)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350
• Classic dry/ wet ingredient mix. Whip butter and mix in brown sugar, baking soda, eggs. I skipped the 'dry' mix and added the pudding and flour directly to the wet mix.
• Add in whatever mix-ins you choice. (Chocolate chips, Butterscotch chips, Nuts, Etc.)
• Drop spoonfuls onto cookie sheets (should make 24). Bake for 12 minutes.*
• Cool cookies on a cooling rack.
• ENJOY!!

*I used one traditional cookie tray and one 'airbake' tray. While airbake trays are supposed to cook faster, I found that these cookies did not cook thoroughly and fell apart when moved to a cooling rack.

Summary:

We enjoyed these although I don't think they lived up to a traditional Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chip cookie recipe. The nuts added a great crunch and the butterscotch chips really livened up an otherwise dull cookie. All in all they only lasted 2 days.