Nostalgia: tastes like chocolate

When we were younger, my brother was the baker in the family. He didn't bake much and he didn't bake often, but he was the one whose brownies were requested and swooned over. And they were pretty good, I have to admit. However, as much praise as was lavished upon him and his brownies, I had a few of my own favorite recipes, too.

One of the recipes that I remember making on a regular basis in high school was the famous Neiman-Marcus Chocolate Chip Cookies. Mmm, they were good. With about 8 tons of chocolate chips, a large quantity of grated Hershey Bar (and I had a real thing for Hershey Bars back then) and ground oatmeal, there was no way they could be bad. As I've moved on in my baking adventures, however, the recipe was forgotten/abandoned in my quest for newer, better, and different.

These days I have a new favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe that never fails me, but I've read here and there throughout the blogosphere about the Neiman-Marcus cookies and I was struck with a bit of nostalgia, and a longing for grated Hershey Bars. So I dug up the recipe and got to grating.

A few minutes into grating, though, I said to myself, "This bites. Hey! I'll use my food processor!" Ahh, the joys of being all grown up with fancier toys. Within minutes, voilà!


I also have to admit that I did not (gasp!) use a big Hershey Bar. I feel a little guilty and stuff, but the A) cookie making was a last minute decision and I don't keep Hershey Bars around the house, B) Hershey Bars are hard to come by in the Netherlands, and I could have gotten one at the commissary but that's a half hour away and generally more trouble than it's worth, and C) We had a couple bars of Ritter Milk Chocolate in the freezer and it is so so good. So, Ritter it was.

I also departed from the original recipe a little bit (I feel so ashamed! I couldn't admit any of this to my 10 years younger self! She would call me a snob!) by using chopping up some Ritter Dark Chocolate instead of using chocolate chips, because I never use chips anymore unless I can find fancy snooty gourmet ones.

Oh, and I chopped up some earless chocolate bunnies I found in the freezer because I was a little short on chocolate bars. They had been living there since Easter and I thought it was their time.

So with my food processed oats and chocolate and my snooty chocolate chunks, I set to work. But there was one more difference in my cookie baking adventure now compared to the good old days. These days I have assistants, an entourage if you will:


Not a one of them is very helpful in the kitchen, but they do enjoy the music I play while baking and the dancing around the kitchen. They might enjoy it more if I shared the cookies with them, but they can eat my cookies once they learned to grate chocolate bars for me.

The final cookie result...


And were they as good as I remembered?


I'd answer you but my mouth is full of cookies.