Sally Jackson's Blue Chocolate Chip Cookies

"I recoiled at the taste, because I was expecting apple juice. It wasn't that at all. It was chocolate-chip cookies. Liquid cookies. And not just any cookies—my mom's homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the chips still melting."

Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

My son and I read this book last year.  Sometimes, when an author starts out this exciting the follow up books are a bit of a let down.  The characters aren't so new anymore and the plot seems to lag as the author tries to outdo the previous book's excitement and laughs.  In other words, the work of writing a story starts to show  and it's hard to get caught up in the world you were so enraptured by in the first book.

Not so with this series.  We sped through Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters so fast that we were back at the library to pick up books three through five less than forty-eight hours later.

Even my hubby, who tends to read from the more serious end of the SciFi spectrum thought the book was fun and read the first three with us.

Now, back to the cookies pictured above and their violent blue hue.  Blue foods are a neat little part of this series.  Percy, the hero of the story, adores his hardworking single mother Sally Jackson and these blue chocolate chip cookies are something that she makes only for him and as far as I'm concerned, they are the best cookies I've eaten in a long time.

Sadly, with all the tasty foods mentioned in the books, Mr. Riordan never lists recipes.  So I made my own.  My first attempt was with just a regular chocolate chip cookie recipe.  You know the one, it's on the back of the bag of Nestle chips.  Well, those cookies tasted okay, but looked like mounds of Cookie Monster puke.

I think it was the egg and brown sugar mixing with the blue food coloring that made them so revolting.

So, anyway, these cookies are actually a shortbread and they turned out pretty much the way I imagined them from the book.

Blue Chocolate Chip Cookies (with dried cranberries, because I really like dried cranberries in everything)

2 sticks butter
3/4 cup confectioners' sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup chopped dried cranberries
1/3 cup dark chocolate chips
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
blue food coloring (I used a fair bit, totally optional folks)
1/8 teaspoon salt

Directions:

Beat butter and powdered sugar with a hand mixer until creamy and smooth.  Add vanilla, flour, baking powder, blue food coloring and salt. Hand mix the  chips and cranberries.

I used my hands.

Looks a little gross, huh?

Anyway, once everythings mixed up, cram it into a ziploc bag.  Press all the air out and then use a rolling pin to roll it flat.

So it looks like this.

Then stick it in the fridge for a few hours.  Or, if you're in a super duper hurry, put it in the freezer for 30 minutes (that's what I did, cuz I'm always in a hurry).

Preheat your oven to 350. 

Cut the plastic off your cookie dough and cut it into whatever shapes you like.

Like this.

Or use a pizza roller to zip through the chilly dough (sorry, I forgot to get a picture of that).

Then put each cookie on a parchment lined sheet and bake them for 10-12 minutes.

Nom, nom.