Have you noticed the cookie mania lately? We are in the midst of a cookie pandemonium in every magazine, on every radio station, on each and every morning TV show… cookies, cookies and MORE Christmas cookies. I suppose this year it is more intense than others due to the desire to make homemade gifts. The economy and all.
Well, I was in to it at first. I planned to make many different kinds of cookies, like last year when I made these and these and these and these. Instead, it got to be too much and the dog-eared magazines and bookmarked web recipes led to excessive option paralysis and drove me straight back to the plain old chocolate chips.
These are almost like Toll House except different. I think the sugar ratio is a little different. What really intrigued me was the melted butter. I don’t know why melting the butter makes this banana bread so good. But, it seems to be part of the secret. I wondered if melting butter might also be the secret to the best chocolate chips.
I am not ready to say that I have found the best basic old chocolate chip cookie recipe of all time. But, I might be close.
Mom’s Chocolate Chip Cookies
From Mom’s Big Book of Baking by Lauren Chattman
2 1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 t pure vanilla extract
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a medium mixing bowl. Cream cooled melted butter and sugars together in a large mixing bowl with a wooden spoon until smooth. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth. Stir in the flour mixture until just incorporated. Stir in the chocolate chips and nuts if you are using them. Place in the bowl in the fridge for 10 minutes or up to 6 hours to let the dough firm up.
Drop batter by the heaping tablespoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets, leaving about 3 inches between each cookie. Balls of dough may be placed on parcment sheets, frozen and transferred to ziplock bags in the freezer. Frozen cookies may be placed in the oven direclty from freezer.
Bake cookies until golden around the edges but still soft on top, about 10 minutes (a minute or two longer for frozen dough). Let the cookies stand on the baking sheet for 5 minutes and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely)
PRINT RECIPE
December 22nd, 2008 at 1:41 am
I found this recipe on another blog and have made them several times since. No one argues that these are THE BEST chocolate chip cookies they’ve ever tasted. cookies I’ve made in the past called for equal parts brown and white sugar, but these are 2:1 brown sugar to white, and I think this makes as much difference to the recipe as the melted butter.
(but if I’m making cookies ’cause I’m in the mood for cookie dough, this recipe won’t cut it. the melted butter doesn’t create a cravable dough texture.)
December 22nd, 2008 at 1:42 am
oh, and the recipe I used urged people to use a 1/4 c of dough per cookie. it creates huge cookies (about 10 per batch, I think)–most people can’t eat a second.
December 22nd, 2008 at 9:01 am
Cookie mania indeed! I don’t think the world will be able to consume all the cookies I’ve seen on the net recently.
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:21 am
I haven’t given in to the cookie mania yet, but this has tempted me to do so! My dad is a choc chip cookie field and I know these would suit him quite well, thanks for the recipe!
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Just made these cookies using demerara cane sugar, as I did not have regular brown. I was making them for a Christmas eve party..we already ate half of them..very tastey..I cant wait to make the banana bread w/ the melted butter! Happy Holidays!
December 26th, 2008 at 8:19 am
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