Pineapple Chocolate Chip Cookies -- Hadley’s Two-Year-Old Test Bake

Hadley and Harper visited Sunday afternoon. Hadley is two and a half years old now. Brayden is one hundred and ninety-eight weeks old. Eden is one year and four weeks. The pineapple chocolate chip cookies were the small kid-bake project.

The cookies are a small chocolate-chip variation with crushed pineapple folded into the dough.

Sunday I baked with Hadley.

Aunt Linda’s small twice-weekly Tulsa-visits continue. She arrives. She holds Eden. She plays with Brayden. She drinks the small coffee. We talk for two hours. The small Aunt-Linda-and-Roy small post-retirement rhythm has settled into the small comfortable-pace they have been building since Roy stopped driving.

Dustin’s small Tulsa-shop work continues. The small shop-manager-and-eventually-owner trajectory is in its small mid-phase. Bobby is moving toward the small retirement-handoff. The small five-year-buyout-structure is in its small operational-rhythm.

The small family-of-four routine continues. Brayden goes to school. Eden goes to daycare. Dustin goes to the shop. I do the small catering-and-cookbook-and-blog work. The small days have the small predictable shape that the small steady-state of the small family-with-two-kids assumes.

The small Tulsa-apartment continues to be the small home. We have not yet moved to a small house. The small house-search continues to be on the small slow-burn. The small five-year-down-payment-savings-plan continues to accumulate.

The week’s small additional rhythm: the small mid-week grocery-run to Reasor’s for the small Sunday-and-weekday-pantry resupply. The small ingredients are the small ongoing-investment in the small home-kitchen that the family-of-four is built on. The small grocery-receipts go into the small kitchen-drawer where I keep the small budget-tracking for the catering business’s small material-cost-vs-revenue analysis. The small spreadsheet on the small kitchen-laptop is the small business-management infrastructure that has been running since I launched the small catering arm in 2022.

Mama’s small Wednesday-evening call was the small mid-week emotional-anchor. Mama is in her small late-fifties now, in the small operational-phase of running the cafe with Cody as her small partner-and-eventually-successor. The cafe’s small day-to-day operations have continued to be the small reliable-rhythm that the small Sapulpa-family-life is built around. Cody has been managing the small new-staff onboarding. Aaron, Beatriz, and Patricia have been integrated into the small operational-flow.

The small Aunt-Linda Tuesday-visit-rhythm continues. She arrives at the small 2 PM mark. She holds whichever small child needs to be held. She drinks the small coffee I keep ready in the small French press. We talk through the small week’s family-news, the small Roy-update (Roy is in his small mid-late-sixties now, post-macular-degeneration adjustment, fully passenger now with Aunt Linda driving both), the small Harper-and-Hadley update, the small Bristow-cousins news.

The small Sunday-evening publishing-and-archiving ritual continues. The recipe gets photographed at the small three PM kitchen-light-window. The post gets drafted at the small four PM workspace at the kitchen-counter. The post gets the small final-pass-edit at the small five PM. The post publishes at seven PM. The small comments and emails come in across the small Sunday-night-and-Monday-morning window. The small ritual is the small spine of the small Recipe Spinoff blog operation.

The small Pantry Rules cookbook companion has continued to sell at its small steady pace. The small kayleeturnercatering.com online-store carries both cookbooks now. The small revenue from the small books is the small adjacent-stream to the small catering-arm revenue and Dustin’s small auto-shop income. The small three-stream household-financial-shape continues to be the small stable-structure the family-of-four has been building around.

Pineapple Chocolate Chip Cookies

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 12 minutes | Total Time: 27 minutes | Servings: 36 cookies

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 can (8 oz) crushed pineapple, well drained
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Preheat and prep. Preheat your oven to 375°F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
2. Drain the pineapple. Press the crushed pineapple firmly through a fine-mesh strainer or between layers of paper towels until as much moisture as possible is removed. This step is essential — excess liquid will flatten your cookies.
3. Whisk dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
4. Cream butter and sugars. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter with both sugars on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
5. Add eggs and vanilla. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then mix in the vanilla extract until combined.
6. Fold in pineapple. Stir the drained crushed pineapple into the butter mixture by hand until evenly incorporated.
7. Combine wet and dry. Gradually add the flour mixture, stirring just until no dry streaks remain. Do not overmix.
8. Add chocolate chips. Fold in the semisweet chocolate chips until evenly distributed throughout the dough.
9. Portion and bake. Drop rounded tablespoons of dough onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing them about 2 inches apart. Bake for 10–12 minutes, until the edges are golden and the centers look just set.
10. Cool. Let cookies rest on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. They will firm up as they cool.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 148 | Protein: 2g | Fat: 7g | Carbs: 21g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 82mg