Someone asked for my chocolate chip cookie recipe after my expose on golden brown. Perhaps other homemade cookie makers find this, but people seem amazingly surprised by how good they are, which I can assume is only because we're living in the generation of store-bought baked goods. The recipe my family uses is basically the same one on the bag of Nestle chocolate chips, but it's apparently the 1970's version from when my mother first started baking. The only difference is that the recipe now calls for two sticks of butter to replace the 1/2 cup shortening and they removed the teaspoon of water.For those who rarely make cookies, the most important thing to note is the technique. Chocolate chip cookies come out better if you don't over beat them, so NO MIXERS. There are some cookies that come out just fine from a mixer (like sugar cookies), but chocolate chip cookies aren't one of them. Oh, and when you're combining ingredients, use the back of your wooden spoon. Trust me. =)
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Difficulty: Easy
Time: Maybe 15 minutes of prep with 8-12 minutes of baking per batch of cookies.
Serves: Hmmm... is my husband home while I'm baking them or not?
Requires: Wooden spoon. Requirement! Seriously. You with the metal spoon, I don't think so.
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature. Not below and DEFINITELY not above.
- 1/2 cup shortening (Crisco's bars are more expensive but SOOOO convenient)
- 3/4 cup brown sugar, packed (if you have kids, let them help with this. They'll love that the brown sugar holds it shape when you dump it out)
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar. I'm going to take a moment to soapbox a little. You get what you pay for with sugar. Spend the extra pennies and get a name brand like Imperial or C&H over the store brand. The crystals will be finer and will bake better.
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 tsp water
- 2 eggs
- 2 1/4 cup flour - no need to sift for chocolate chip cookies
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips. Okay... so here's the thing. I've found I get more compliments when I use MINI chocolate chips. They distribute more evenly for a more consistent flavor to the cookies. I'll also sometimes buy a bag of mini M&Ms and use half a bag of mini chocolate chips and half a bag of mini M&Ms.
- Preheat the oven to 350.
- Put your butter and shortening in a large bowl and blend. Again, make sure your butter is room temperature. If you overheat your butter by popping it in the microwave, you cookies might not take shape right. Word to the wise!
- Add in the brown sugar, granulated sugar, vanilla and mix with the back of your wooden spoon until creamy. Add the water and combine.
- Add the eggs one at a time, beating after additions.
- For the remaining ingredients, I tend to add them on top of my combined wet ingredients and sort of stir them together a bit BEFORE stirring them into the wet ingredients. The original recipe suggests doing it in a separate bowl, but then I have to wash two bowls. Again, use the back of your spoon to combine all the ingredients, and don't over beat.
- Add your chocolate chips and M&Ms if you wanted any. Combine everything together. I tend to make cookie dough with pasteurized eggs (see my post on making mousse for more info) so that we can also eat the raw dough without worrying about salmonella.
- I like uniform cookies, so I use a cookie scoop. If you don't have one, form rounded balls of cookie dough, about the size of a tablespoon or an inch, and place them on an UNGREASED cookie sheet.
- Bake in batches for 8-12 minutes until golden brown along the bottoms. This is a "know thy oven" sort of experiment. I can tell you that in my current oven, it is exactly 10 minutes. In my first apartment, they were done in 8. Depends on how hot your oven runs and how well your cookie sheet conducts the heat.
- When you take them out of the oven, let them rest for a minute or two before removing from the tray. I like to take my leftovers and heat them in the microwave so that the cookies are warm whenever I eat them. Enjoy!
