Otherwise known as my new favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe.



I’ve never really been a big fan of chocolate chip cookies, at least not the kind that I bake myself. I’m not quite sure why, but I’ve always had a hard time getting them to cook through, or not stick to the pan, or not spread out and be super thin, or brown too much on the top, or be too crunchy, or be too soft, or just not taste right.

My bad luck with chocolate chip cookies started early enough, one of my first Christmas cookie baneverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.comking experiences when I was around 9 years old. Up until then, I was a designated cookie cutter or decorator, but never the one to mix the ingredients together. Go figure.

Well, given my relative naivety in the kitchen, I totally forgot to add the salt. I assumed that he salt was an important ingredient, so after I’d mixed everything together, I throw the teaspoon of salt in there and sort of stir the cookie dough around the bowl a bit until I couldn’t see the salt anymore. Then I put it in tin foil and stuck it in the fridge for a little while. After I came back and spooned out a few mounds of cookie dough on the baking sheet, I got distracted and my mom eventually finished baking the cookies off. As soon as the last batch was out of the oven, I reached onto the tray and grabbed a warm cookie. I poured myself a glass of milk and settled in front of the television with my dad, who gave me “the look” until I got up and got him a cookie too, and since I figured I was up anyways, I grabbed a few other cookie varieties from the plate on the kitchen table, so I could sample them all.

So we’re sitting there, watching some sentimental made for TV Christmas movie, and my dad starts to gag. I was in the middle of a bite of snickerdoodle, so I didn’t say anything as I turned to see what was the matter. Lo and behold, he was gagging on a bite of that chocolate chip cookie I brought him. He got up and spat out the cookie in the trash bin, and proceeded to ask my mom what she put in the cookies that made them so salty.

Of course, my mom hadn’t made the cookies, so she just looked at him like he was insane and told him that “you better ask your daughter, because she’s the one that made them.” As that look of “oh noes, I poisoned my dad” crept across my face, I glanced down at my plate of cookies, my untouched chocolate chip cookie staring right back at me.

I took a bite…

BLEH! I felt like I was a horse licking a salt lick, only it was vaguely chocolate flavoured. I looked at the cookie where I had taken the bite, and there it was.. A nice big white salt streak running through the center of my cookie. I assumed that this was the case with my dad’s cookie as well.

My dad turned the corner from the kitchen into the living room just in time to see me with a mouth full of salty cookie, and seeing the look on my face… He stifled his laughter and asked if I needed some more milk. I disposed of the cookie and my dad poured me a new glass of milk. We sat at the kitchen table, sort of laughing about the whole thing as I drank my milk and he drank his coffee. My mom was a little frustrated about my wasting the whole batch, but agreed that the cookies needed to be thrown out. We said a few words and sent them to the great trash can in the sky.

Ever since then, I’ve always had bad luck with Chocolate chip cookies. Not even just making them, but just having them in my possession.

On my 20th birthday, my mom made me a GIANT chocolate chip cookie and wrote “Happy Birthday” on it and brought it to me at work. She also brought along a whole tray of regular sized chocolate chip cookies that she had made, so I let my co-workers eat those cookies, while I packed up my jumbo sized cookie after work, sat it on the passenger seat of my car and plodded along on the drive home.

I think I made it 10 feet out of the parking lot before I got hit by another car. The Cookie was not salvageable. It was a sad day. I had “yadhtriB yppaH”, the mirror image of Happy birthday, stained into the light beige colour of my faux leather dashboard from the red icing on my cookie for a few years afterwards, as a reminder of this.

Otherwise, all my baking experiences with chocolate chip cookies have come up flat, soggy and burnt.

But not these cookies. These cookies were easy to make and tasty. They didn’t spread out too much, they aren’t too puffy, they aren’t soggy at all, nor are they too crunchy (though they do have that pleasant “mmm… brown sugar and butter” crunch at the bottom). They’re perfect.

So here’s the recipe-

Cakey, soft but flaky, Peanut butter and Chocolate- chocolate chip cookies.

1Cup ’slightly colder than room temperature’ butter
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 scant cup granulated sugar
1 lightly packed cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon chocolate extract
2 eggs
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
4 cups flour
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups chocolate chips (1 bag)

Cream together the butter, peanut butter, sugars, vanilla and chocolate extract. Add the eggs and beat until fluffy. Sift together the flour, salt, baking soda and cocoa powder. Combine both mixtures, stirring or kneading until fully integrated. Fold in the chocolate chips. The dough should be stiff.

Refrigerate the dough for at least an hour. Once removed from the refrigerator, place cookie dough by the spoon full, scoop full or slice about an inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Do not press cookies down on the cookie sheet. If you want to flatten the dough into disks, lift off cookie sheet and press between your fingers and then place it back on the cookie sheet.

Bake for 8-12 minutes at 350F.

This recipe will make about 4 dozen 2″ cookies, but really, it depends on how thick you make them. I personally made about 3 dozen 2″ cookies that were about half an inch thick, as well as one larger cookie of the same thickness, only about 8″ in diameter, and a few mini cookie bites.

It is a lot of cookie dough, though, so if you only want a dozen or so, consider halving the recipe.

Once they’re baked, allow them to cool a few minutes on the cookie sheet before removing them and placing them on a cooling rack or serving platter. OR, you could just eat them right there over the stove.

But at least get a glass of milk to wash them down. *smile*

Eat and enjoy!

-A.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 1st, 2008 at 3:13 am and is filed under October 2007. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.