Chocolate Chip Cookies

I'll admit, debating on whether I should give up this recipe with all of its secrets was tricky. It's one of my most popular recipes. I made them yesterday for a movie night. When I walked through the door I wasn't greeted with "hello", but rather with "Did you bring the stuff?".

To do some baking I have a few trusty accessories that make it all better! What makes baking more fun, and less work?
Exactly my beloved pink kitchenaid. It is absolutely in my top 5 kitchen loves!

Next I am a messy, messy person and absolutely need some protection for my clothes. So I wear this lovely apron my sister gave me for my wedding.

Last but not least we need some music! I throw pandora.com onto my little tablet and let the music flow. Cooking is way more fun when you can sing along as loudly and off key as you feel like!

Also I would like to show you guys the best measuring spoons I have ever used. They are called spice measuring spoons and are designed to fit well into spice jars. I absolutely love them and would obviously recommend them. I think I got them at a little kitchen store in town a few years ago, but I don't think they are hard to find.

I decided that someone should benefit from my awesome recipes without me having to do the work, so here you are:

First off I'll just give you the recipe and then I will write a step by step of each stage of the recipe illustrated with my photographs, and add in all of my super secret tips that make this recipe more awesome.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients needed:

220g butter (unsalted)

(220g of butter is just under two sticks. I cut approximately a quarter inch off each stick of butter. Further down I have a photo that shows how much I cut off.)

¾ c brown sugar

¾ c white sugar

1 t warm water

1 t baking soda

1 egg

1 t salt

2 ½ c flour +-

Chocolate chips as desired (½ – ¾)

1 t vanilla

Preparation:

Whip 220g butter

Add ¾ c brown sugar and ¾ c white sugar

Add 1 t warm water, 1 t baking soda, 1 t salt, and whip in 1 egg.

Add 2 ½ c +- flour little by little

Add chocolate chips as desired

Bake at 190 C or 375 F for around 11 minutes

Now here comes the step by step:

These are all the ingredients you need:

Baking soda, brown sugar, white sugar, salt, flour, butter, vanilla extract, egg, and chocolate chips.
Now this is my first pro tip: use milk chocolate chips as opposed to semisweet. Most people don't notice it per se, but in general everyone likes the cookies better with milk chocolate chips.

Here are some groupings of the individual ingredients. 

Ok, get your butter ready for the kitchenaid (or whatever mixer you use. I've made this dough completely by  hand when I didn't have even a mixer. So it's not impossible, just harder work.).

The way I measure it is, I take two sticks of unsalted butter and cut a quarter inch piece off either end.

Unsalted is important as you want to be in control of how much salt you add. However if you have no other option, omit the salt later on in the recipe.

Then cut the butter in similar slices and throw it into your mixing bowl.

Once you have that, cream the butter. It should look something like this:

Now we add the sugars. 3/4 cups each.

Add it to the butter and mix well.

This is one of my secret ingredients. I add a tea spoon of luke warm water. This is one of the reasons my cookies are nice and soft.

Next you add the baking soda.

Make sure you blend/mix everything after adding any new ingredients.

Here comes the egg:

Pro tip number two: always crack your egg into a separate bowl first! The reason you do this is in case the egg has gone bad. If it has gone bad and you cracked it into a separate bowl, then you haven't ruined all of your other ingredients and can just throw the egg away. If you cracked it into the mixing bowl and it has gone bad, you need to throw out your butter, sugar, baking soda, etc. If that happens, you might not have enough ingredients left over to redo the beginning.

Believe me! Once you've had to throw out all your ingredients because of a bad egg, you'll always use a separate bowl. :)

Add some salt:

Ok, so the recipe says add one teaspoon of vanilla extract. Lets be honest, I never measure that, but I know I add way more than just one teaspoon. I love vanilla and make my own vanilla extract. I just add a really healthy splash.

Once all of these ingredients have been added, comes the flour. Add 2 1/2 cups. I usually add them in half cup increments so my mixer doesn't explode flour all over my kitchen.

Here is what the dough looks like after you add the flour and before you add the chocolate chips:

Now add the chocolate chips. My mom's recipe adds like a cup and a half of chocolate chips. I just dump the whole bag in, because chocolate!

Looking good!

And presto: cookie dough!

Pro tip number 3: I don't use a cookie sheet! I use a pizza stone! This makes the cookies so much better. I can't really explain, but it makes a huge difference. Often on a cookie sheet the sugar burns and caramelizes on bottoms of your cookies. On the pizza stone they stay nice and moist.

Obviously the stone doesn't stay nice and pretty like that. It just happens, that I got a new stone as a graduation gift from friends and used it for the first time to make the cookies.

Now this is what the cookies look like all portioned out onto the stone:

Here they are fresh from the oven:

Now, you do not want to leave the cookies on the stone for too long. The stone is porous and will suck all the moisture out of the cookies and make them rock hard after around 10-20 minutes or so. I transfer them onto a cooling rack.

Pro tip number four: The first batch of cookies will take about 13 minutes as the stone is still cold. The following batches will only take around 11 minutes as the stone is hot and begins cooking the dough as soon as it's dropped onto the stone.

That's all for now folks! I hope you enjoy my favorite, prize winning cookies!