Getting Rid of Extra DBal
culture  

Getting Rid of Extra DBal

By Emily

As part of the Caltech Board plan, we get a little over $400 a term to spend on Declining Balance (DBal), which can be used in Chandler Dining Hall or the South House Kitchens for lunch or Breakfast, or in the C Store or Student Coffee House (Chouse) at any time. DBal doesn’t roll over between terms, so if you have leftover DBal during finals week, you try to buy up the CStore to get your money’s worth! In previous terms, I’ve bought several boxes of Clif Bars to bring home for my father (who loves them), or bought a dozen pints of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream for my house (impromptu ice cream party!)

This term, though, I thought I’d do something that I can share with my house and also share with you! Here is my DBal Cookie recipe, brought to you by the CStore’s endless supply of peanut butter and candy:

3/4 cup of Skippy Super Chunk Peanut Butter 1/3 cup of Honey 2 bags of dark chocolate MnM’s 1 egg pinch of baking powder pinch of salt

Heat the peanut butter in a microwave in one of your house kitchens (all eight undergraduate houses have full kitchens!) for 30 seconds. You want it to be quite smooth. Preheat your oven to 350 F.

Beat the egg separately.

Mix the peanut butter, beaten egg, and honey together with the salt and baking powder until very smooth.

Add your candy! I used dark chocolate MnM’s, but you can add pretty much anything that you think will go well with chocolate!

Now get a cookie sheet, which almost all house kitchens have (seniors who graduate often leave their old cookware behind and it becomes “alleyware”), and cover it with a sheet of parchment paper (also sold in the CStore!). Scoop some dough out into small cookies: these are gonna end up veryyyy soft so you want to keep them small, or they’ll break. Your batter should make 15 cookies, which takes into account the batter you ate before.

Bake for 10-12 minutes, until golden and slightylyyyy brown on the bottom!

While they’re baking, wash your dishes. This is how you get ants.

Let them cool for 10 minutes after you take them out of the oven. Go work on a problem set or something, I don’t know. Stop asking me what to do.

Finally, share with friends who are taking the finals you’re procrastinating by baking cookies! Also, don’t forget to turn off the oven.

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