Let me just begin by saying that I made cookies waaaaay too many times this winter. But given the two (or was it three?) sets of snow days we had, I don't really feel it was my fault. I'm stuck in the house, I shouldn't go anywhere, what am I gonna do? Bake, of course. And eat.
I love love love classic chocolate chip cookies, and I've never bothered to find a recipe other than the one from the back of the Nestle bag. And when I discovered that even when I threw away the bag, I still had access to the recipe on the Nestle website, Very Best Baking, I was thrilled.
So, without further ado, my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe.
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Original recipe from Very Best Baking
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 12 oz. package milk chocolate chips
3/4 to 1 cup chopped nuts (optional)
The only change I make to the original recipe is to only use half a package of chocolate chips. Because I'm cheap. And I like a rather large ratio of cookie to chocolate chip. When all you can taste is the chocolate, you lose the wonderful cookie flavor, and that makes me sad.
Start off by beating together the butter and both kinds of sugar. You want to beat it until the whole mixture becomes light and fluffy. I had a wonderful picture of this; unfortunately, my computer hated it, so it's gone now. Just take my word for it. It was beautiful.
Next, add the vanilla and eggs.
The eggs should be room temperature; the easiest way to get them there quickly and safely is to fill a bowl with warm water and submerge the eggs in it for no longer than two minutes.
After you add the room temperature eggs, and the vanilla, beat it all together. Resist the urge to taste the dough because of the possibility of salmonella (unless, of course, you're not pregnant and don't have a paranoid husband. In that case, go right ahead)
Then add the flour, baking soda, and salt.
Mix it all together and add the chocolate chips and nuts.
Mix it for the last time.
Drop the dough onto a greased cookie sheet. If you want more cookies but smaller ones, only do about a tablespoonful of dough. For larger cookies, use larger globs of dough
Bake at 375 degrees (Fahrenheit, obviously) for 9 to 11 minutes. If the edges are golden brown, that's usually a good time to pull them out, unless you're one of those weirdos who prefers their cookies crunchy and half-charred. Let the cookies cool on a cooling rack, and try to avoid eating them all at once
In case anyone was wondering, the mixer in the pictures is a Bosch classic mixer. My mom got a new one, so she gave me her old one to see if I could get it functional. There's nothing wrong with the mixer itself, but after Mom using it for 20 years or so, the little plastic pieces that keep the bowl in place while the beaters spin have worn completely off. Like so.
And here you can see the grooves on the bottom of the bowl that are supposed to slot into place on the base.
We tried replacing the plastic pieces with JB Weld; it held long enough to make this one batch of cookies, but that was about it. Now we need to see if we have any welders in our friends or family who can run a bead that will work. Or I need to find $400 to buy a new one. To any of my family members reading this, the answer to "what do you want for your birthday" is "money to save up for a Bosch. I hate to retire the old one when the motor on this one is just fine, but I'm not sure if there are any other options.
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