Homemade Mickey Mouse Chocolate Chip Cookies

'Tis the season to eat yummy!

Baking cookies is one of those things that I hardly ever do, but when I do do it I love it, and end up wondering why I don't do it a lot more often. Of course, help from my fiancé is pretty much required, as God knows how they would turn out if he didn't (oh look at that, I know too: not too good!).

He is a second grade teacher, and last week we were discussing what he wanted to give his students as a little treat for the beginning of the holidays. I mentioned that baking some cookies would be nice, and that is exactly what we set out to do. I started researching recipes, and was finally inspired by these from Bakerella. They include pecans (which I hate) and sprinkles (which we didn't have at the time), so we didn't add those. We also substituted the chocolate wafers she used in that recipe for regular chocolate chips.

We made enough for his class and of course for us, and even though they didn't look particularly stunning, they tasted pretty darn good, so I was satisfied.

The ingredients you will need to make 24 of these are:

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup softened butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 2 eggs
• Whatever additions you want to add (license to get creative here!). I only used m&m's and chocolate chips. You can use whatever you have handy.

First of all, mix the flour with the baking soda and the salt. Take the butter and the sugars and cream them together:

When the texture is fluffy, add the eggs and the vanilla, and combine. Take the flour, baking soda and salt mixture and add it. When combined, add your toppings:

Let it chill for about half an hour. Preheat your oven to 350 ºF (or 180 ºC). Scoop the cookies onto baking paper, and let them bake for around 15 minutes (but be careful! some ovens take shorter, like mine... I got a little distracted and almost burned them, so just make sure you are keeping an eye on them!).

After making the first batch, we realized we have a Mickey-shaped cookie cutter lying around (goes to show how often I bake cookies!) that we got when we went to Disneyland last year. Tommy was so excited to eat the "Mickey cookies"! They could have tasted awful and they still would have been a hit with him. Oh, and Sean informed me that his students loved them too, so I am definitely calling them a success!

***The reason there weren't too many m&m's may or may not be because I had a mouthful or two before baking***

All in all it was quite the nice Sunday afternoon activity. I was left with the desire to keep baking fun little treats during the Christmas time. It just feels like that is what super moms do, you know? I have the impression that all the great moms out there are great at baking (just me?) and I really want to incorporate that into our lives. Who knows? maybe I'll become the kind of mom that when my kid brings a friend over I just come out with baked goodies for them... I think that makes for great memories. And, well, if the cookies don't turn out that good, it makes for great stories, so what's there to lose, right?