Old Favorites

Well, I thought it might be fun to start this off with one of my old favorites, chocolate chip cookies. It has taken me several years to get it right, so that the chocolate chips don't protrude from sadly flat cookies. I now have it down pretty good, and I usually make a huge batch so that I can freeze the extra dough and have it on hand for when the cookie monster in me strikes.

Here's the recipe:

Dry Ingredients (Mix these together before adding to the other ingredients)

5 C of unbleached, all-purpose flour

2 tsp of baking soda

2 tsp of salt

Other ingredients:

4 sticks of butter (no fake stuff, only real butter), softened

1.5 C of brown sugar, packed

1 C of white sugar

4 eggs

2 tsp of double-strength vanilla (I love Penzey's) or 4 tsp of regular-strength vanilla

4 C of chocolate chips (24oz)

Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugars on medium speed for 4-5 minutes until they're really smooth. I used to just mix them up, but they need to cream together for several minutes to be consistent. Then beat in the eggs and vanilla.

If you have a really beefy mixer, you can add the mixed dry ingredients, one cup at a time on low speed until it's all mixed together. Otherwise roll up your sleeves and mix it with a wooden spoon by hand. Scrape the bowl as needed to make sure there aren't any pockets of flour at the bottom. Then stir in the chocolate chips.

Place by teaspoonfulls onto an ungreased baking sheet. Bake at 375 for about 10 minutes until golden brown. Remove from oven, let sit for about 3 minutes, then transfer onto a wire cooling rack or directly into your mouth, muwahaha.

Bake as many as you like, and then freeze or eat the remaining dough.