Chocolate chip cookies, eggless!

Brad's packing for a weekend climb, trying to squeeze in some sleep before leaving at 2:30 a.m. to drive 7 hours, and suddenly says, "I was going to make cookies." - which meant, "I was going to ask you to make cookies." No problem. I was just looking at this recipe for jam bar things. "Oh. I was thinking chocolate chips," he says. No problem. Wait...

Before leaving for a 10-day vacation, I had very thoroughly cleaned out the kitchen (except for the plum and handful of blueberries were were supposed to eat right before we left - oops!). No eggs. I now only buy eggs from our farmer friends and hadn't made the trip to Newberg yet this week. Of course, I turned to the Internet to solve my dilemma. Water and cornstarch in a cookie?? I guess I'll try it... if it doesn't work, he can settle for the jam bars.

I just used my tried-and-true recipe (from the package of "Flavorite" chocolate chips!), subbing the water/cornstarch for the eggs.

1 c butter, softened in microwave
1 t vanilla
3/4 c sugar
3/4 c brown sugar
2 eggs (1/4 c water and 1 t cornstarch per egg)
2 1/4 c flour (I ended up adding an extra 1/4 c - 2 1/2 c total)
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
chocolate chips
chopped walnuts

Preheat to 375. Cream butter, sugars and vanilla. Add "egg". Add dry ingredients. Since it had a 1/2 c of water, it was very thin. I got scared and added an extra 1/4 c flour. It was still thin, but I left it - fingers crossed. Stir in nuts and chips. Use scoop to drop dough on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 7 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

Besides being really thin and fluffy, the dough was very pale - since there were no egg yolks in there. I was really nervous that the dough balls would just run all over the pan. But when that timer went off, they looked perfect! They cooled to excellent, chewy cookies - you would never know it was an altered, eggless recipe.

So if you're in a pinch, this totally works! Now we know :)