Monday, October 27, 2008

The Famous Chocolate Chip Cookies

These bad boys are a frequent request from my kitchen. My sister will come to town and ask if I'm making them, Sofia will remind me when I haven't made them in awhile, and OHSU even been paid me to make 12 dozen of them last year! Many have asked for my recipe and so I'm going to post it here. I'm a firm believer in sharing recipes. If someone else can benefit and learn from my recipes than I'm that much happier of a baker and cook. I think it's silly when people won't share their recipes as if it's some huge family secret that only those born into a family can benefit. I like to share and I believe when you have something great that others can enjoy, you should share!!


CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

Ingredients:


1 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 1/4 cup unsifted all purpose flour (may need extra flour)
2 cup chocalte chips
1-2 cups M&M’s® or nuts (optional)


Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a large bowl, cream butter, sugar, and brown sugar until light and fluffy.

Beat in eggs and vanilla until smooth. Beat in salt and baking soda.

Gradually add flour one cup at a time. The mixture may need more flour above what the recipe indicates. To determine if the mixture needs more flour, wash your hands and touch the dough. If the dough is extremely sticky to your fingers, it needs more flour. Note: by not adding more flour you can count on a very flat cookie.

Begin by adding 1/2 cup additional flour at a time.

Beat or mix the dough until the flour is well mixed.

Repeat the sticky test. Continue to add flour until the dough is not sticking to your hands. After you add sufficient flour (usually an additional 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 more cups flour).

Add the chocolate chips and any additional ingredients (i.e. M&M’s ®, nuts)

Lightly grease cookie sheet and roll small to medium-large sized balls in your hands and then place on the cookie sheet. I like to use a food scale to weigh my cookie dough in 1 or 2 oz balls. The recipe will produce around 50 1 oz cookies and just over 2 dozen 2 oz cookies.

Bake 8-12 minutes, depending on the oven.

Watch your oven and the cookies as they bake to determine the necessary amount of time to bake in your oven. Cookies are done when they are just barely starting to turn golden. If the cookies turn golden brown throughout, you can count on them being soft and moist the day they are baked but they will harden the next day. That is why pulling them out of the oven right when they're just starting to turn golden is essential to having a cookie that will stay soft and moist as if you just cooked them that day! (that is if they even last longer than a day!)

5 comments:

Monica said...

Yum, Yum! But I have a question--is it really suppossed to be 1 CUP vanilla? Maybe thats the secret, Never used that much, but I don't cook a lot. Just double checking. Let me know cause I want to try them, I love soft moist cookies! Thanks!

Stormy said...

Hey Monica! Yeah, NO, it's not supposed to be one cup. Thanks for catching that. I corrected the post to reflect 1 teaspoon, which is plenty! It's great to hear from you!

Stormy said...

p.s. Let me know how they turn out for you!

Tori said...

Those sound terrific! Maybe some day I'll get around to baking again. :)

Lindy said...

Okay, you just HAD to post this, didn't you? Now I'll just HAVE to make them to try them out (and of course eat half the batch).