Cookie Riffs....

A few years ago I found a cookie recipe in Real Simple (I think...) that had one dough for 8 different cookies! It was amazing! With variations on one dough - most made after the dough was completely made - I was able to create a number of vastly different cookies. That recipe made a shortbread style cookie - it was delicious, but I wanted to try the same thing with a chewy style cookie.

With that in mind, I made some substitutions to the ginger molasses cookie in the post below. The result is a soft chewy sugar cookie - a bit like a crisp cherry chew, but a bit more fluffy. I'm not a crisp cherry chew fan, but the dough was just the base.
Here are the modifications:
- Omit spices, except salt
- Add 2 tsp Vanilla
- Use Corn Syrup instead of Molasses (& perhaps a bit less)
- Do not roll dough in sugar

Here's what I've made so far...
After making the dough, I divided it in half and added 1/2 c cocoa powder to half the dough. This worked b/c I think I didn't use quite enough flour (I used a scale rather than scoop and level). If you use the scoop and level, you may want to use slightly less cocoa powder or use less flour. You want the dough to be fairly stiff and able to pull together a bit in the mixer when being mixed.

Peppermint Puffs
- I made these with both the chocolate and vanilla dough. Crush candy canes and roll balls of dough in candy cane, bake on parchment or foil per directions. Allow to cool completely before moving, but may slide parchment of pan after cooling 2 minutes.

Chocolate Cherry Surprise
- Shape each ball of dough around a maraschino cherry (use maraschino, not candied). Roll balls in powdered sugar and bake as usual. These were a BIG hit with me and Isla - very pretty and very tasty, if you like maraschino cherries.