Our town community center is having a chocolate chip cookie contest (like a bake-off.) My 7-yearl old daughter heard about it and got very excited (she loves to watch all the Food Network Challenges with me!), so we signed up for it. It's not any big deal (we had to pay $15 to enter!!) but it will be a fun family activity.

Usually when I make chocolate chip cookies, I do the cake mix recipe, but, we cannot use that. Obviously I don't want to use someone else's recipe, but I don't know how to go about creating our own. I was thinking we start with a basic recipe and make a bunch of different batches, changing things like the kinds of sugar, type or flour, butter/shortening, mix-ins, etc.

Is there a particular formula to make cookies? Ratios, etc? We have 2 weeks to practice. Also, since we homeschool, I intend to make this a learning experience for my daughter.

Any advice is greatly appreciated! Thank you!

What do the rules state?

I'm with Jan, if you want to experiment, I'd start with a tried and true recipe and make adjustments. But this close to a the contest I don't know that I'd start from nothing and build the recipe up.

As far as I know (someone correct me if I am wrong, JanH?) a recipe can not be copyrighted. I believe the wording of the methods can be, such as the steps involved, but not the ingredients.

How do you prove or disprove that the list of ingredients you came up with during play isn't on a recipe somewhere out there?

There is a book out called "Ratio" which talks about the ratios of what to what to make just about anything. http://www.amazon.com/dp/1416566112/?tag=cakecentral-20

I went to a cookie party over the holidays and since some of them know that I do cakes they were expecting some very good cookies cause as they say "baking is baking" . Well, I really don't do cookies so I searched CC for cookie recipes that sounded good and ended up trying out eight different kinds (only took two days) and ended up with one that we thought was the best but the cookie texture wasn't quite where I wanted it so I modified it and wow it was a huge hit . That being said the hostess called the next day for the recipe and I gave her my modified recipe and she said the cookies she made from it were not even close to the cookies that I brought . It is true that you can give ten people the same recipe and you will get ten variations of the original. Anyway, go ahead and play with an existing recipe, you never know what you may come up with!