Killer Chocolate Chip Cookies

It's recipe time again!  And this time I'm not going to hold back on the bragging: these are the best chocolate chip cookies you'll ever taste.  I'll qualify that only by adding that I assume everyone likes their chocolate chip cookies the same way I do: slightly crispy on the outside, chewy, soft and almost cake-like in the middle, a tiny bit salty and sweet, but not too too sweet.

Years ago, when we were first married, Dave used to tease me CEASELESSLY about how horrid my cookies were.  Burnt. Flat.  Dry. Hard.  You name the recipe, I found a way to ruin it.  I could cook a mean steak, but Girlfriend, I could not bake a cookie to SAVE MY LIFE.  But instead of throwing in the towel and giving up, I dug in and started researching.  I tried every recipe, every combination of flour vs. butter, every possible permutation.  And finally, a decade later, I am no longer ashamed of my cookies!

KILLER CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

The cast of characters is pretty basic.

2.25 cups all-purpose flour (I get good results using King Arthur brand)
.5 teaspoons of baking soda
.75 cups of granulated sugar
.25 cups of light brown sugar
1 teaspoon of coarse salt (a little less if you use salted butter)
Also included, but not pictured above since I forgot about them until it was time to add them to the mix:

2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 large eggs 

And of course, the magic ingredient:

7 tablespoons of Butter-flavored CRISCO and
7 tablespoons of soft butter

If you have a good chocolate chip cookie recipe that you just want to make better, you can just stop here.  The secret to perfect cookies is TERRIBLY AWFULLY BAD FOR YOU, but I'm guessing you're not eating these FOR YOUR HEALTH.  And Pioneer Woman puts food coloring in her chicken soup, so what's a little CRISCO!?  Honestly, though, this is the secret to good cookies: however much butter your recipe calls for?  Use half butter-flavored Crisco and half real butter.  I promise it's like magic.

I always make cookies in my stand mixer, but you can do it by hand or with a hand mixer and still get excellent results.  First up, preheat your oven to 350 degrees if you have a regular oven.  I heat mine to 360 because I've noticed it's never as hot as I'd like.

Then, measure out your sugars.

And throw them into your mixing bowl with the butter and Crisco.

Set your mixer to low speed and then measure out your flour and baking soda in a separate bowl.  I always whisk my flour instead of sifting and that seems to work just fine.  Also be sure that your baking soda is FRESH.  I always assumed it was the kind of thing that lasted forever but a recent article in one of my cooking magazines proved me very, very wrong.  NINE MONTHS, that's how long baking soda lasts!  So I threw mine out and spent a whopping 97 cents on a fresh (store-brand) box.

Next scrape the sides of your mixer and then add two large eggs, two teaspoons of vanilla and a teaspoon of coarse salt.  If you used salted butter, reduce the amount of salt you add by not quite half.  Or not.  Last time I added half the salt and the cookies weren't salty enough for me.  I don't have any pictures of this step because did I mention I had "helpers" while I was making this batch of cookies?  It was at this point in the process that I was already losing my head while Genoa asked me for the 8,008th time if it was, "COOKIES READY!?  COOKIES READY YET?!?"

Once that is well combined, you can start slowly adding your flour.  Or you can make the same mistake I did and let your four-year-old add it for you, in which case about a third of it will end up on the counter.

Once combined it will hopefully look something like this:

And then your "helpers" will REALLY start to bother you.  "I wanna YICK IT!"

Next add a bag of chocolate chips.  I'm not picky about chocolate chips.  I usually buy Ghirardelli or the tasty ones they sell at Trader Joe's.

This is a good step for a four-year-old.  Then I use my spatula to both scrape the bowl and mix in my chocolate chips. 

Next, get out your parchment paper and use it to line three baking sheets. 

If you've never used parchment for cookies, you'll find it to be almost as magical as the Crisco.  The cookies don't stick and best of all, you can be like me and never, ever clean a baking sheet again.  I always bake cookies on the double baking sheets with the air inside.  It prevents the bottoms of the cookies from burning.

Next start dropping heaping teaspoons of batter onto your cookie sheets.  Keep a good two inches of space between the cookies.  Like so:

Try to keep your "helpers" from helping too much.

Pop them in the oven and bake for 12 to 14 minutes.

Another good thing about parchment is that you can remove the whole sheet and plop it right onto your counter to cool the cookies.  They look like this when they're done:

And see the chewy delicious center?

Just try not to eat them all in one sitting. 

No seriously, go ahead and TRY.

Comments

[G-mom]

The husband loves Choclate Chip cookies. I ususally make toll house ones. I will gladly try these. As much as I love to cook and people tell me I'm very good at it the thing that always gets me is BROWNIES! No matter what I do or how careful I am they turn out to be little "hockey pucks". Even after I got my GE-duel fuel convection oven I still make Hockey pucks. The husband makes awesome brownies so when necessary he does the honors. LOL

[cameo]

Oh man, I'm drooling here! Must make them tomorrow when I have my nephew here. Oh, wait, I DON'T HAVE THE CRISCO!

[Kerri]

Amanda is right...if you're not using some Crisco (although I don't care for the butter-flavored kind), you're not making good cookies.

[Jenn]

What a fun post and the cookies do look wonderful. I'll be trying your recipe soon.

[andrea]

Just waiting for nap time so I can give the recipe a try!

[Tana]

YUM!! I had no idea baking soda only lasted for 9 months!

[Leah Rubin]

Cookies, hell-- I'm now in love with your kids! But, since I can't have them, I will try your cookie recipe. I'm now hungry for them, so thanks a lot for sabotaging my diet...