one-bowl toaster oven chocolate chip cookies.

Despite the heat, I still keep using the oven. One day when I had a hankering for something sweet, but didn't want to flood the house with waves of heat rolling out from the kitchen, I decided to use the toaster oven.

And lo and behold, one of the blogs I regularly follow had a recipe for toaster oven chocolate chip cookies! It was fate. I also hadn't made chocolate chip cookies in forever, and my brothers always appreciate a break from the random, creative, awesome sometimes unusual things I prefer to bake.

So these happened! They were pretty good. They came out crispy, actually. But I still liked them, even though I usually really don't like crispy thin cookies! And so did everyone else, despite our mutual strong preference for thick, chewy, crispy-edged choco chip cookies.

I would actually open myself up to other types of more wafer-ish cookies, now. Like those thin gingerbread or the oatmeal ones (sans raisins, please).

The picture of the cookies in the toaster oven is reminiscent of those Easy Bake Ovens every little kid baked with. To be honest, I have never used one of those in my life. I did have a Mad Scientist Nascar toy car set that had pieces to build a track that ended with the car being slimed (or narrowly escaping .. you never knew!) with fluorescent green goo.

If toy cars and green slime don't suit your fancy in this heat, then try out these cookies! They bake pretty quickly, no matter the size of your toaster oven, and they can be "made to order" too!

Toaster Oven Chocolate Chip Cookies
from here. 

• 1 stick (or 1/2 cup) unsalted butter, room temp 
• 1/2 cup brown sugar 
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar 
• 1 tspn vanilla extract 
• 1/4 tspn salt 
• 1/2 tspn baking soda 
• 1/4 tspn baking powder 
• 1 egg
• 1 1/4 cup flour (I subbed 1/4 cup whole wheat, for some nuttiness)
• 1 cup chocolate chips 

1. Beat together the butter, sugars, vanilla, and salt. 
2. Add baking powder, baking soda, and egg. Beat well. 
3. Stir in flour till just combined. 
4. Stir in chocolate chips till just evenly distributed. 
5. Cover and chill dough at least 30 minutes. 
6. Heat toaster oven to 375 degrees. 
7. Place dough balls (as big as you'd like, ideally 1 - 1.5 tablespoons) on baking sheet at least 2 inches apart. Maybe do a trial run, as they do spread quite a bit. I put 4-5 per baking sheet. 
8. Bake 10-13 minutes, till golden brown. Cool 2 minutes on tray before transferring to a plate/cooling rack to cool. Eating warm is also delicious.