This is a great cookie. It is thick and chewy, with crisp edges. It is sturdy, but not cake like. I chose this recipe because it lists the ingredients in weight ~ which is the most accurate way to prepare a recipe. It came together very quickly while using few dishes – since everything is weighed, I just spooned it into a bowl. This is a Baking Illustrated recipes which I located at Brown Eyed Baker which I highly recommend checking out. *Update – this afternoon I had extra buttercream frosting from the cake, so I made some sandwich cookies too. Totally fat filled weekend, no doubt.

Be sure and follow the baking directions closely!

Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 2 cups plus 2 tablespoons (10 5/8 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 12 tablespoons (1½ sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled until warm
• 1 cup packed (7 ounces) light or dark brown sugar (I used light)
• ½ cup (3½ ounces) granulated sugar
• 1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 – 1½ cups semisweet chocolate chips (Used a dark chocolate baking bar & semi-sweet chips)
  

Adjust the oven racks to the upper- and lower-middle positions and heat the oven to 325 °.

Whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl; set aside.

Either by hand or with an electric mixer, mix the butter and sugars until thoroughly blended. Beat in the egg, yolk, and vanilla until combined. Add the dry ingredients and beat at low speed just until combined. Stir in the chips to taste.

Roll a scant 1/4 cup of the dough into a ball. Hold the dough ball with the fingertips of both hands and pull into 2 equal halves. Rotate the halves 90 degrees and, with jagged surfaces facing up, join the halves together at their base, again forming a single ball, being careful not to smooth the dough’s uneven surface.

Place the formed dough balls on the prepared baking sheets, jagged surface up, spacing them 2½ inches apart.

Bake until the cookies are light golden brown and the outer edges start to harden yet the centers are still soft and puffy, 15 to 18 minutes, rotating the baking sheets front to back and top to bottom halfway through the baking time. (It is essential that you do not let them brown too much in the oven because they will continue baking after you take them out.)

Cool the cookies on the sheets. (Make sure you follow this step – failure to do so will result in underbaked cookies.) Remove the cooled cookies from the baking sheets with a side metal spatula.

Yield: About 18 large cookies.

Check out this picture – I used a Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate Baking Bar, and you can still read some of the letters!

I made some good ‘ole Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookies this weekend. I needed to take some cookies to a picnic, and had broke out my top notch snickerdoodle recipe. I even got as far as having the dry ingredients mixed when I realized I didn’t have any cream of tarter…gasp I know (or light brown sugar…had to use dark). Anyway, I resorted to this fool proof cookie. No need to post the recipe, if you don’t already know it by heart, here is the link.

Chocolate Chunk Cookies

No, I don’t mean where my kids stash their midnight snacks. I mean recipe choices that are at the top of my list. Since there are a gazillion choices for cookie recipes – namely chocolate chipped – to each his own. Soft? Fluffy? Cakey? Thin? Crispy? For me, it completely depends on my mood. I think I base my preferences more on how the cookies hold up the next day. If you work during bankers hours, chances are just whipping up a batch of cookies to serve warm at work ain’t gonna happen. Even if you make the dough ahead of time, you have to dedicate time to watching over the oven etc… So I want to make sure that my cookies are just right about 12 hours after they are cooked. Maybe even 24 hours.

So, here is my top-drawer version of the classic.

Chocolate Chip Cookies, Chunky Style

Ingredients:

• 4½ cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 cups salted butter, softened
• 1½ cups packed brown sugar
• ½ cup, plus 1 tablespoon, granulated sugar
• 2 (3.3 ounce) packages instant vanilla pudding mix
• 4 eggs
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 2 cups bittersweet chocolate chunks (from a bar)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°. Sift together the flour and baking soda, set aside.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar. Beat in the instant pudding mix until blended. Stir in the eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour mixture then the chocolate. Using a cookie scoop, (or a heaping teaspoon), drop cookies on un-greased sheets.

Bake 10 to 12 minutes until the edges are golden brown. Cool on pan for two minutes then remove to brown paper bag to help absorb oils until cool. Store in airtight container.

This recipe makes a WHOLE bunch of cookies. About 7 dozen, so feel free to half the recipe. I like to bake what I need, then roll the rest into balls and freeze. Then I can pop the cookies directly in the oven anytime – as few or as many as I need!

Christmas Sugar Cookies

Having three kids means learning how to be a referee, and not a one sided ref. I laugh when my youngest asks to have a “family game night”. If wrestling counts as a family game, we would earn a trophy.

To add to the competition of three kids, I added a couple more for cookie decorations. We rolled and decorated the cookies at my sister-in-laws house with my two wonderful neices (Autumn and Amber!) Several grey hairs later, you get these results:

The sugar recipe I used originated from the Frantic Home Cook . She entitled these “Perfect Rolled Sugar Cookies”, and I do agree. They were very “roll-able”! I made two slight changes. I increased the vanilla and salt to one teaspoon of each. The vanilla for extra flavor and the salt because I use unsalted butter and the recipe didn’t specify. I also used frosting that my my sister in law had already prepared, however there is a great recipe on the link provided at Frantic Home Cook. The cookies held their shape well, without too much puffing in the oven. I would recommend this recipe for rolled cookies.

Christmas Sugar Cookies

Adapted from this recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp lemon extract
• 3 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt

Directions:

Beat the butter until creamed and add sugar, eggs and extracts. Beat until light and fluffy. Combine the flour, soda, baking powder and salt and gradually stir the flour into the creamed mixture. Wrap the dough and refrigerate at least two hours.

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees*. Roll cookies to 1/4 inch thickness on a floured surface. Bake 8 – 10 minutes or until the sides begin to brown. Remove and cool on pan until hardened then cool completely on wire rack.

*I didn’t have the directions with me, so we heated the oven to 350. It actually worked well for the cookies.

Milk Chocolate Florentines

If I had to choose a favorite holiday dessert, it would have to be cookies, home made of course.  I discovered this recipe last Christmas. My only copy in fact was printed one year ago Thursday. I had it bookmarked in my favorites, but when I clicked on the link today, the recipe was “no longer found”. I spent the next 15 minutes panicking looking through printed recipes hoping to find it…  Finally, I found it.

The recipe is originally from Quaker Oatmeal’s site. It is a very easy recipe, though slightly time consuming – mainly because it requires two steps. The cooking, then once cool the chocolate. Trust me though, it’s worth it. The taste can be quite addicting.

Milk Chocolate Florentines

Quaker Oatmeal

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cups butter
• 2 cups Quick Quaker Oats
• 1 cup sugar
• 2/3 cups all purpose flour
• 1/4 cup light corn syrup
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 3/4 cups milk chocolate chips (1 pkg)

 Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line cookie sheets with parchment.

In a medium saucepan melt the butter. Remove from heat and stir in remaining ingredients, except chocolate chips. Note, I pre mixed the dry  and wet ingredients (separately). Mix until thoroughly combined.

Drop by level teaspoonfuls at least three inches apart, they spread quite a bit. Using a spatula, flatten the batter to 1/4 thickness. Bake for 6 to 8 minutes or until golden brown. Remove and cool completely on sheet. Peel cooled cookies from parchment.

Before melting the chocolate, separate cookies into pairs, matching sizes as closely as possible. Lay each pair top side down. Melt chocolate in microwave at 70% power for one minute. Stir chocolate and continue to heat at 20 second intervals until chocolate is smooth. Spread a thin layer onto the flat side of one cookie, and top with its pair. Allow chocolate to cool. Makes about 3 1/2 dozen cookies.

These cookies are rich and delicate. They make a wonderful addition to a holiday cookie platter.

Update: I found the same recipe on Nestle’s site, though they don’t mention using the “Quaker Brand” oatmeal.

Chocolate Chip (Chunk) Cookies

I love trying new cookie recipes. I only wish I had more time to devote to it. Most of the time I find myself so short on time I have to change my cookie plans to a bar plan… mainly because bars are the closest things I can get to cookies, but its on one pan thing. Not to mention how I notoriously start doing something else while cookies are in, and I end up burning them. It’s a good thing my dad loves burnt cookies, he gets a pan almost every time I bake cookies. I need a timer that I wear like a dog collar… one that shocks you when you need to come back into the kitchen.

That long intro brings me to this post. One of my favorite blogs is Cookie Madness where Anna cooks up a new recipe nearly every day. I have no idea how she does it… Tonight I wanted to try one of her recent posts… well, it is a link to what she says is one of her favorite cookies. I am a sucker for cookies that call for melted butter. Saves me the step of softening the butter.

The dough came together nicely and the cookies baked up beautifully. I didn’t make them 1/4 cup size, but more of a rounded tablespoon. I used a cookie scoop and flattened them slightly as the recipe calls for. I used two types of chocolate – Ghirardelli Semi Sweet chips, and a 70% cocoa bar from Lindt. I always enjoy the combo of the semi-sweet and darker chocolate. Here is the recipe and the link directly to the recipe on Epicurious.

Oh, and by the way… I really didn’t have a lot of time to do anything tonight, especially baking cookies. I only baked about 12 cookies, and put the rest of the dough in the fridge for the night. The oven was already warm from a Sour Cream Pound Cake that I baked for dh birthday tomorrow. It is one of his favorites… (see upcoming post).

Without further adew, here it is.

Chocolate Chip Cookies (adapted from Carla Rollins)

Ingredients:

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
• 1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (16 oz) (1 bag chips, 1 70% Cocoa Bar)

Directions:

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 375°F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment or wax paper.

Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl.

Beat together butter and sugars in a large bowl with an electric mixer at high speed until pale and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Lightly beat 1 egg with a fork in a small bowl and add 1 3/4 tablespoons of it plus 2 remaining whole eggs to butter mixture, beating with mixer until creamy, about 1 minute. Beat in vanilla. Reduce speed to low and mix in flour mixture until just blended, then stir in chips.

Scoop 1/4 cup batter for each cookie, arranging mounds 3 inches apart, on 2 baking sheets. Flatten mounds into 3-inch rounds using moistened palm of your hand. Form remaining cookies on additional sheets of parchment.

Bake, 1 sheet at a time, until golden, 13 to 15 minutes. Transfer cookies to a rack to cool and continue making cookies in same manner using cooled baking sheets.