Classic Chocolate Drop Cookies

This was my first time baking chocolate drop cookies.

I watched Anna Olson's Youtube video recently and decided to have a go.

The first attempt went badly.  The cookies were rather hard because I used butter spread instead of pure butter.

The second attempt went well and the cookies tasted excellent.  This time, I used shortening for cookies and pastry.  I even remembered the recipe by heart this time.

For cup-to-gram measurement, the US-UK conversion comes from the link below:
http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/recipes/531168/cups-to-grams-converter

Chocolate Drop Cookie recipe by Anna Olson

Wet ingredients

½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature (115g)
½ cup packed light brown sugar (90g)
½ cup granulated sugar (90g)
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract (10 ml)

Dry ingredients
1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour (185g)
1 tbsp cornstarch (15ml)
½ tsp baking soda (7.5g)
½ tsp salt (7.5g)

To be added last
1 ½ cup chocolate chips (225g)
1 cup lightly toasted, coarsely chopped pecans (optional) (150g) (I used roasted walnuts)

(Note:I am planning to make another batch of cookies using a reduced amount of sugar because I find 180g of sugar is a bit too much for my teeth)

Below are the photos of the cookies:

Photo 1: 1st attempt- cookie balls before baking

Photo 2: 1st attempt- freshly made cookies

Photo 3: 2nd attempt- cooled and ready to eat cookies

Photo 4: 2nd attempt - cookies ready for storage

Baking disaster: Classic streusel blueberry muffins

I completely messed up the streusel and the oven temperature:  adding too much flour to the streusel; not massaging the streusel with two hands; and baking the muffins at 280'C instead of 190'C for 35 minutes.

(I baked the muffins for 10 minutes before smelling the burnt streusel from the oven!  The kitchen was covered with smoke!!!)

The result was muffins covered with burnt streusel.  The saving grace out of this trial was the texture of the muffins.  They were soft and fluffy due to the sieving process and milk.  Another one was the tulip wraps, that were correctly home made by me!

I will follow the instruction for the muffins in the future.  Enjoy the photos below.

Photo 1:  Classic streusel blueberry muffins

Photo 2:  blueberries inside the muffins

Photo 3:  half eaten by me!

Recipe by Anna Olson

Streusel Topping Ingredients:

⅓ cup (50 g) all-purpose flour
¼ cup (50 g) packed light brown sugar
¼ tsp (0.75 g) baking powder
¼ tsp (0.75 g) ground cinnamon
3 Tbsp (45 g) cool unsalted butter, cut into pieces

Muffins Ingredients:
½ cup (115 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar
1 tsp (5 mL) finely grated lemon zest
2 large eggs, at room temperature
2 ½ cups (375 g) all-purpose flour
2 tsp (6 g) baking powder
¼ tsp (1.5 g) salt
¼ tsp (0.75 g) ground nutmeg
½ cup (125 mL) 1% or 2% milk
2 cups (250 g) fresh blueberries