Fabulous Chocolate Chip Cookies

I love chocolate chip cookies (really, I love food in general.  Too bad most of it makes me a bit curvier than I should be!). 

I have labored for the last few years to find a recipe that had a good balance of dough to chip ratio (bad, Good Housekeeping), and wasn't too dry (ahem, Betty C.), or too sweet (you too, Mrs. Fields), or made you think, "did I miss something?" (Martha S.), and funny how I'm not partial to the one on the back of the Tollhouse bag . . . 

You wouldn't think that this would be difficult for PROFESSIONALS!  Out of the ton of cookbooks that I have gone through and out right rejected, some even before I baked, knowing the dough was not working well, a couple were okay, but most were not for me.  Now, I'm not knocking others tastes or saying that mine are so much better, but this is just the recipe for me.

I needed to bake for a "thank you" for a friend of mine, and in asking him his favorite cookies, he responded - Chocolate Chip.  Dammit.  So off I go to find one thinking that if I couldn't, I would fall back on banana bread, which I know he likes.  Off I went to my favorite blog that rarely steers me wrong (http://smittenkitchen.com/). I stumbled across one of hers that she touts is her favorite and thought, "why the hell not?"

I now have a recipe that I love.  I do go with a higher amount of sea salt (not regular salt!) and a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg.  I also add just a bit more chocolate chips and make them half dark and half light chips, I feel this adds more depth and richness to these fabulous cookies.


Fabulous Chocolate Chip Cookies
makes about 2 dozen cookies, give or take a couple for your own amount of dough eating . . .

1/2 c sugar
1/2 c packed light brown sugar
1/2 c butter, softened (use REAL butter, people)
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 c all purpose flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 c semisweet milk chocolate chips
1 c dark chocolate chips


Preheat oven to 300F, and put the rack in the top 1/3 of the oven, this keeps the bottoms from browning too quickly.  Line your baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a large mixing bowl beat together both of the sugars with the butter until smooth (I do about 5 minutes with a hand mixer).  Add the egg, vanilla, spices and soda, beat well (again, about 5 minutes).

In a separate mixing bowl, sift together the flour and salt.  Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix well.  Mix in the yummy chocolate chips.

I use an ice cream scoop about half full to create about 1 inch (~2tbsp) balls  a couple of inches apart.

Bake for 18 minutes just until pale golden brown.  Allow to cool on a wire rack.  try not to burn off your mouth if you cant wait to whoarf them down!