Make Your Own Backfire Cookies!

Welcome to our first culinary foray into the Land of Windhollows. Let’s look at a recipe that is known and loved far and wide: the crispy, chewy, tasty delight known as the BackFire Cookie!

BackFire Cookies come in a wide variety of flavors, colors, and shapes. Luminians and Numinians love to be creative in all aspects of their lives, and that includes getting wild with BackFire Cookie recipes. Chocolate, candied, giant, or small, BackFire Cookies can go wherever the baker’s imagination takes them.

Our first batches were chocolate with peanut butter chips, which is a staple in Billy Molskin’s home of NuLu Banks. As we perfected the art of making cookies, we progressed to mint chocolate chip versions. For a touch of excitement, we even made a few batches that were colored green with vegetable-based food colors. The icing on our BackFire Cookies came when we made them with white chocolate chips, Reese’s Pieces, and M&Ms.  

The secret to a good BackFire Cookie is letting the dough rest before you scoop it out and bake it. About five to ten minutes in the chill chest should be enough. You just need to let them set up a little bit. This is the difference between a flat cookie, and a beautifully baked, round cookie. Trust me on this, these Luminians know what they are doing.

Past that little secret, the sky is the limit. The recipe that we use has three points where you can let your creativity fly.

1. The instant pudding mix can be substituted for any flavor that tickles your fancy.

2. You can also swap out the vanilla for any food flavoring.

3. The add-in is all up to you to. It is a common birthday party activity to let everyone pick their own add-ins to the birthday BackFire Cookies.

So, there’s the BackFire Cookie! Take our base recipe and make it your own, just don’t forget to post your finished product to our Facebook page (https://facebook.com/Windhollows). We would love to see where your imagination takes you.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Heat oven to 350° F

2. Wisk together the flour and baking Soda

3. Beat butter and brown sugar together until light and fluffy

4. Add pudding mix and vanilla - beat until blended

5. Add eggs, mix well

6. Add flour in 3-4 batches. Mix well after each addition

7. Fold in your add-in (6oz of chocolate chips, or whatever you like)

8. (Rest) – Put your dough in the fridge for 5-10 minutes

9. Drop balls of dough about 2 inches apart. For this, I use 2 spoons, you can use a cookie scoop, if you have one

10. Bake 13-16 minutes, depending on oven

11. Remove from oven

12. Allow to cool for 3-5 minutes, move to cooling racks.

Enjoy!!

COOKING NOTES

We’ve used chocolate chips, Reese’s Pieces, White Chocolate chips, Peanut Butter chips, and more.

We’ve used professional mixers and hand mixers. A hand mixer will work but less powerful ones will take longer to mix.

My convection oven never cooks evenly. I bake the cookies for 8 minutes then turn them for another 8. Keep in mind that if you make the cookies smaller, the cooking times will be lower. Make sure to keep your eye on them the first time around.

SHARE YOUR WORK!

Share your work, recipe tweaks, and delicious cookie photos with us on social media using #backfirecookies #windhollows