Chocolate Chip Cookies

Cookies:  I have a lot of recipes.  But my first choice for a drop cookie would be the chocolate chip.  I have made many of these too.  But my all time favorite is  a Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe from Bon Appetit .  It has more butter, more sugar, more flour:  it’s just MORE!  So when my husband and I were invited to a friend’s house for a very early dinner the next day, I volunteered to make dessert.   (among my close friends I am dubbed the Dessert Queen, sometimes bringing more than one to a function, because, well, I can!) I was running a little short on time and did not want to go out to get any special ingredients (though I am surely not opposed to doing this:  I have been known to go to Shoprite (which is right across the street) 3 times in one day: yikes!).

So I decided on my Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe because I always have the ingredients on hand for that.  But I had been baking all day, it was 4 p.m.  and making drop cookies was like, hmm and dinner too?  I could not make them the next day before we went because we already had other plans.  What to do?  I smiled to myself and thought of my childhood friends’ mother.    My friend was one of 8 children and her mother cooked and baked from scratch.  I loved that family, there was always something going on.  4 boys and 4 girls, how could there not be?  And I remember a recipe I had gotten from her for Chocolate Chip Sticks and being told  “It’s just a Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe in a pan:  you know, the lazy way out”.  The light bulb went on, the lazy way out indeed:  this woman had 8 kids and still baked!  Well I was going to be lazy too and proceeded to put my favorite recipe in a baking pan.  Delicious!  I recommend it highly and they can be cut anyway you like:  giant squares or skinny rectangles.  The drop way is excellent as well, when of course, you have more time!

Enjoy!

Chocolate Chip Cookies (adapted from Bon Appetit)

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) of butter, room temperature

1 cup sugar

1 cup (packed) golden brown sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract (please make this real vanilla!)

6 oz.  of 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chips  by Ghirardelli

6 oz.  Milk Chocolate Chips by Ghirardelli

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Whisk flour, baking soda and salt in medium bowl.

Using an electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until light and fluffy.  Add sugar and brown sugar and beat until well blended.  Add eggs and vanilla and beat until mixture is creamy and well blended.  Gradually add flour mixture, beating until just blended and add chocolate chips until just combined.

For bar cookies, put dough into a 13 x 9 in. aluminum baking pan coated with cooking spray.  Press and spread into pan (the dough is dense) until evenly distributed and bake for 20-25 minutes.

Cool completely and cut into squares or rectangles in size of your choice.

For drop cookies, weigh out 1-1/2 oz.  pieces of dough, roll into a nice ball and place 6 on an ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake for 8 minutes, turn pan and bake for 3 more minutes, until slightly golden.  Let cool on pan for about 5 minutes before transferring to a rack to cool completely.

Just a note about the chocolate chips:  The mix of very dark chocolate and milk chocolate is really quite delicious.  You might say, why not semi-sweet?  Well, it’s just not delicious enough!  The semi-sweet Ghirardelli chocolate chips are smaller and I like BIG chocolate chips and you just don’t get the same taste with just semi-sweet.  And Ghirardelli is the best quality chip available to me.