Graham cracker chocolate chip cookies

Graham crackers are a new treat for me. My mom never bought these for me growing up, and I (shockingly) never had a s'more in my childhood. My husband is a fan of graham crackers and thought that our daughter would like them too (he was right).

As Addison was munching on her graham crackers one day, I noticed that the back of the box included a recipe for graham cracker chocolate chip cookies. Excellent! The instructions seemed pretty simple so I added them to my "to bake" list immediately.

I loved that these cookies did not require any eggs because I had just used up my last egg earlier. Whew. The sweetened condensed milk acts as the binding agent for these cookies, and they weren't too sweet at all. The graham cracker crumbs give it a nice background flavor, so they are slightly different than your regular chocolate chip cookie.

I gave some of these to our new neighbors. It gave us an excuse to introduce ourselves to the families in our cul-de-sac and helped us make some new friends. The daughter of the neighbor across the street even said that she might eat them all before they even made it inside her house.

On a separate note, I'm already enjoying cooking in our new kitchen. I've got tons of counter space, and you'll see from the photo above that we've got some beautiful granite countertops and a travertine backsplash! Drool...

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups finely crushed graham crackers (you should have a cup and a half of CRUSHED graham crackers)
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

To make graham cracker crumbs, either place them in a zip-top plastic bag and roll over with a rolling pin, or pulse in a food processor/blender (I used my blender). Crush enough graham crackers to make 1.5 cups.

In a medium bowl, mix together the graham cracker crumbs, flour and baking powder.

In another bowl, mix the sweetened condensed milk and butter until smooth. Add vanilla extract. Slowly add the crumb mixture and stir until the mixture is smooth. Finally, add chocolate chips.

Drop onto a lightly greased cookie sheet (I used my imitation Silpat) by the spoonful (I used my medium cookie scoop).

Bake for 12-15 minutes or until lightly browned.

Let cool for at least 5 minutes and then move to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Yield: I got about 32 cookies using a medium cookie scoop

Source: Recipe from Kroger's Honey Graham Cracker box