Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

A few years ago I discovered God's gift to the fall: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies. After making a few tweaks to the recipe I started with, they've become a mainstay to my fall baking endeavors. But, if you know anything about me at all, it's that I'm prone to disaster. I'm a klutz and there's no disguising it. And if you know anything about cooking and baking it's that it's ok to play around a little when you cook but not ok to play as much when you bake. This was a lesson I heard loud and clear the summer I tried to invent my own strawberry daiquiri cookies (don't try that at home, it was one of the biggest mistakes of my baking life).

So here I sit, 7 minutes and 45 seconds away from pulling my 2010's first pumpkin chocolate chip cookies out of the oven. I'm anxious and nervous...because I screwed them up...

First I spilled the oil as I was dumping it into the bowl. How? I don't know but I did so of course I guessed at how much I spilled and just dumped it right back into the bowl. Unfortunately this happens a lot so I'm not concerned about that.

Second, I learned an awesome lesson: baking powder reacts with egg white in a similar fashion as baking soda and vinegar. I learned this when a little baking powder hit the sink where an oozy egg shell was hanging out and the combo began sizzling and bubbling.

Third, another lesson although not as awesome: the cooking spray which was used to grease the cookie sheet should not be ingested...it's nasty.

And finally, my biggest potential mistake. 4 minutes and 35 seconds away from the verdict. The recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Always having this in my cupboard because I'm an avid baker, I grab it without thinking and add it into my 90% complete cookie mixture, the last step before chocolate chips! As soon as I measure and dump it into the mixture I smell something. Hmm, I don't remember vanilla having such a strong odor. I panic and realize what that smell is without even looking at the bottle. It's the secret ingredient for one of my other famous cookie recipes: ALMOND EXTRACT! and 1 teaspoon of that stuff is A LOT!!!! It's very potent.

I'm 2 minutes and 32 seconds away from finding out if I actually screwed up all of my cookies or if I've made a new discovery. Here's to hoping almond extract can't overpower pumpkin!!!

**UPDATE** I screwed up. 1 teaspoon of almond extract CAN overpower a cup of pumpkin. I almost want to throw that almond crap away because it ruins another recipe! The cookies don't taste bad, just not as pumpkiny as I would like...