No fuss Chocolate Chip Cookies

I was having some trouble figuring out why I can’t get a good chocolate chip cookie at a bakery, local restaurant or store that isn’t too dry, has some strange spice in it or just plain tastes too many days old. Happy for me, I was lucky enough to put an end to my search while at lunch on Wednesday with a friend. She and I try to meet once a month for lunch at a different location to catch up on our busy lives (and I seem to always be trying a cookie) and Wednesday’s locale was a new place in the Houston Heights called Down House. I’m not going to elaborate on the restaurant (as I don’t want this to turn into a restaurant review!) but the food and namely said chocolate chip cookie were delicious.

The cookie was the perfect size, like you would make at home, not as big as your face and not bite-sized leaving you wanting for more. It arrived at our table placed simply on a white beverage napkin, on a small white plate, still warm (or maybe it was rewarmed?) to my utter delight. Loaded with chocolate chunks and pecans, it was baked to perfection, still soft in the center and only slightly browned. Which leads me to believe they make them in small batches, which is a very good idea because it really was perfect. So kudos to Down House! Now let’s talk about some you can bake at home and be equally satisified…

What I love about drop cookie recipes, is for the most part, you can just throw all your ingredients together, scoop them on to a pan, and a mere 15-18 minutes later be rewarded with homemade goodness. My husband is particularly fond of these cookies and really, who doesn’t love a homemade chocolate chip cookie, which of course makes them great to share, which I do, often, with the neighbors, who are starting to threaten me with their future doctor bills…

I’ve tried quite a few chocolate chip cookies recipes and this is by far my favorite. (I do, however, reserve the right to change my mind should I find a better one.) When you want to whip up a batch of homemade cookies, you want it to be easy and you don’t want to wait for butter to soften. This recipe fits the bill. You can melt the butter in the microwave and while you are gathering the other ingredients, it cools enough to be ready when you are, to begin building your cookie dough. Another great thing about this recipe, you don't have to bake it all the same day. You can put it in a container in the fridge and it will keep for a week - I have done this and they turn out just as good. Just bake em' when you want em'!

Before we move on to the recipe...

** A note about scooping or weighing your ingredients. Weighing your dry ingredients is always the best method to use but with drop cookie recipes, you do have a little wiggle room. If you are doing the scoop method, place spoonfuls of flour into your measuring cup until it mounds over the top (I am holding the measuring cup over the flour at this point). Then take a knife and sweep across the top edge of the measuring cup, removing the excess, and leaving a flat surface.  You don’t ever want to just scoop the flour with your measuring cup from your container because the flour gets packed down and you’ll end up with more than you need.**

Now let’s bake some cookies!

Chocolate Chip Cookies - makes 2 dozen cookies with a #30 scoop
(I've put the weight in parenthesis if you are so inclined to weigh the dry ingredients)

2 1/8 cups All Purpose Flour (10 ½ ounces – weighed)

½ teaspoon table salt

½ teaspoon baking soda

12 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 ½ sticks), melted & cooled slightly

1 cup brown sugar (light or dark), 7 ounces – weighed

½ cup granulated sugar (3 ½ ounces – weighed)

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups of chocolate chips or chunks (semi or bittersweet, or 1 cup semi & 1 cup of white chips, or 1 cup of semi & 1 cup of toffee chips)

*Optional: 1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts or pecans

~ Heat oven to 325 degrees (you can actually do this while the dough is chilling if you don’t want your oven on while working on the dough). Place oven rack in the center of the oven.

~ Mix flour, salt, and baking soda together in a medium bowl and set aside

~ Either by hand or with a mixer (I always just do it by hand!), mix butter and sugars until well blended (it will look soupy and not whipped like you might be accustomed to with other recipes).

~ Mix in egg, yolk and vanilla.  Add dry ingredients; mix until just combined. Stir in chips.

~ Refrigerate dough for 10-20 minutes – until it is firm and not super soft.

~ Using a #30 ice cream scoop, put about 9 dough balls per baking sheet (if you plan to buy this size scoop, the number is right inside of the scoop.)

~ Bake for 15 to 18 minutes, until cookies are light golden brown and the edges are starting to harden.

~ Cool cookies completely while still on cookie sheets. (yeah right, you know I barely wait until I won't burn myself trying to eat one...)

Pour yourself some milk and enjoy! …and maybe share some with the neighbors…

Sugars, melted butter and eggs, should be very liquid, not at all a whipped mixture

Mix in flour until just combined, then fold in chips

Number 30 scoop

9 scoops of dough per cookie sheet - don't overcrowd the kids!

Allow cookies to cool completely on cookie sheet