Christmas is 12 days away! I'm going to be giving baked goods to friends this year. If any of you are reading, sorry for the spoiler!
Today, I'm working with a couple of recipes. I decided to bake today because it's the first time in close to a week that I got a good night's sleep thanks to Nyquil. Insomnia runs in my family and it's just my turn this week.
But there is a little energy today and I'm expending it on baking.
Here we go!
First, we'll do classic chocolate chippers. I would like to brag that when we had the chocolate chip cookie throwdown in culinary school I won by a landslide. I'm not exaggerating. I got all but six votes out of around thirty. I did a little victory dance and yelled "In your face!" or some such thing. Karla? Do you remember what I was shouting?
Anyway.......
Preheat the oven to 360. That's right, 360. Yes, I am a picky bitch. Deal with it.
Moving on!
Put 1 cup of butter, 1/2 cup of sugar and 1 1/2 cups of packed brown sugar into a mixer. You'll let this mix around until it's nice and fluffy. Go beyond it just being combined, really get some air into it.
Once the butter and sugars are fluffed. (huh huh huh, I said fluffed.) Add 2 eggs and a teaspoon of vanilla. Let this mix again for a couple minutes.
The dry ingredients are: 2 3/4 cups flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons baking soda and 1 teaspoon cream of tartar.
Gradually add this to your butter/sugar/egg/vanilla stuff. Mix it until it comes together. Scrape down the bowl and make sure it's all together and cooperating and all that stuff.
For chocolate chips, I just add as many chocolate chips as I want in the finished product. I like a cookie that's mostly chocolate chips with just enough dough to hold them together. If you like fewer chippers, add less. Let's say 'to taste'. If you bake this dough without the chocolate chips, this becomes what's known as a "Brown Sugar Cookie".
Get out a tablespoon and plop these down on a cookie sheet. I like to put parchment paper on the baking sheet so I don't have to wash the pan.
Bake these suckers for about 12 minutes. When you take them out of the oven, let them sit for a couple minutes and then get them off the sheet pan or they'll keep cooking. These have crispy edges and a soft center. Yum yum yum! Hide some away for later if you have children who will gobble these down.
While these were baking I got another batch of cookie dough together. Again, chocolate chip cookies but with peanut butter.
I am going to point out that this recipe comes from a book called the Cooky Book that my mother-in-law gave me. Copyright? 1963! Thanks Jan!
Okay, keep the oven at 360.
Into the bowl of your mixer, don't worry about cleaning it first, put 1 cup of butter, 1 cup of peanut butter, 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of packed brown sugar.
This is my favorite part of the cookie dough to nibble on so I always have a couple spoonfuls of the stuff. Since I love it so much, here's a picture of it:
Put two eggs into this mixture and mix it up until the eggs are well incorporated.
The dry ingredients are: 2 1/2 cups of flour, 2 teaspoons of baking soda 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of cream of tartar
Again, you'll add this in gradually. You can add chocolate chips to this or just bake 'em up. I always make some without the chocolate in case the kids' friend Gwen comes over. She doesn't like chocolate and, without fail, she'll show up on the day I make cookies that all contain chocolate. So, I try to be prepared for that situation.
Pop these into the oven for about 10-12 minutes.
Jingle Bells!
