This recipe is easiest with a mixer of some sort in order to blend the dough thoroughly.
It probably could be done by hand, but the dough is very tough to handle
due to the ingredients chosen. It's still worth a shot, of course, you'll just need
to be willing to dig in and knead it with your hands. The ingredient combination
results in a perfectly moist, awesome cookie, and though it's not just chocolate chip,
the recipe is very similar, improvised and modified from a standard chocolate chip cookie recipe. I live at a high altitude (around 2km/1 mi) so you may want to use
slightly less flour. The ingredients are in customary units,
so try 2 or 2¼ cups instead of 2.333333~~ (I may come back and add metric once I get
my TI-85 back; I am too lazy to just figure it out now...)
Many people have difficulty making soft, moist chocolate chip cookies. The secret is to
make them a little larger than recommended, and if you live at a high altitude, add slightly more
flour. Almost every recipe I encounter says to use one tablespoon of dough to make one
cookie. This seems way too small to me. I use probably three times more, although I don't
measure it. I just try to keep it consistent. For the following batch, I usually yield
about 30 cookies, about three inches in diameter each. The larger the cookie, the more moist
it will be, and the more it needs to be baked. Also, I recommend an air-insulated cookie
sheet, as they are far superior to simple pans. I've never burnt a cookie on one.
Ingredients:
- Anywhere from two to two and 1/3 cups of flour, use more at higher altitude
- One teaspoon of baking soda
- Two eggs
- One and ½ cups of sugar. This can be all brown, all white, or a mixture. I use one cup of brown, and ½ cup white.
- 3/4 to one cup (depending on health consciousness) of butter, margarine, or shortening. I use Smart Balancetm or Spectrum Naturalstm margarines. They are non-hydrogenated.
- ¼ to 3/4 cup (ibid) of peanut butter (see here)
- One to four teaspoons of real vanilla extract (depending on vanilla love)
- A pinch of salt (some recipes call for more, I think less makes them more dense and moist)
- ½ to one full cup of nuts if you really want 'em (I don't)
- Two cups of "chips." This can be all chocolate, or some blend. I use half chocolate chips, half peanut butter chips. I think it's better that way (Reese'stm and Ghirardellitm...mmm)
Preheat the oven to 375°F. To begin, you must mix the flour, salt, and baking soda separately. In your mixing bowl,
toss in everything else except the chips and nuts. You really can vary your butter and
peanut butter. Most recipes call for the butter to be soft and at room temperature, so it doesn't
splatter all over the place when you try to mix it. The margarines I use blend up right away right
out of the fridge. The combination of the two "butters" in varying amounts seems to keep the cookies
moist, and if you want you can go beyond my recommendations, but I can make no guarantees there.
I've noticed that peanut butter cookies are far easier to bake perfectly than
chocolate chip. By combining both ideas, you get the best of both worlds, in taste and texture.
In your mixer, blend the ingredients thoroughly so it's nice and creamy, and toss in
the dry ingredients. It's a good idea to have a rubber spatula to assist the mixer, as the dough
starts off pretty heavy and may confound your device. I have a nice heavy duty Kitchen Aidtm, and it
needs help sometimes. Allow the dough to mix thoroughly, but only for a few minutes at most. No need to massively knead the dough, it just needs to be homogenous.
It should look like peanut butter cookie dough. Now, add the chips. The mixer may spaz
out a little, but eventually will blend them thoroughly throughout the dough. I find it needs
the most spatula-assistance at this time. Just try to push the dough off of the actual
moving parts every so often so it's actually mixing the dough. I do it while it runs, but you may need to turn it off first
depending on how your dough hook(s) work(s). I don't use the bread / pizza dough style hook myself,
I prefer the other heavy duty triangular shaped one that really blasts through the dough to
mix everything well. I honestly don't know what its intended purpose is, but it seems
preferable, because the bread dough hook can not blend the wet ingredients. I'm lazy.
I find it's usually a good idea to grease up the cookie sheet just a little bit, even if
you used a full cup of fat. You don't need a lot, but these cookies will be very soft and
you don't want any resistance in separating them from the pan. Normal chocolate chip
cookie dough is usually pretty gooey, and must be spooned off onto the cookie sheet. The
stuff you just made should be far more like peanut butter cookie dough. You must roll it into
little balls (mine are usually smaller than a golf ball) and space them apart on the cookie
sheet. Figuring out how many cookies to fit on a sheet may take some trial and error. Like I
said, I don't measure the cookie-balls myself, but they are usually just a little smaller
than a golf ball. I don't think it's a good idea to go much bigger, as they won't cook
thoroughly before they begin drying out and burning in the oven.
The next step is very important. You must further apply the peanut butter cookie technique
by taking a wet fork and mashing the cookie balls down a little, to about half of their original height. "Smush" each cookie twice
at two different angles, and keep the fork moist by dipping it in water as you go. If you
don't do this, they will be harder to bake completely. Usually they don't expand much more
than another inch in diameter during baking, so use one "smushed" cookie-ball to figure out how
many to fit on a sheet. I have my spacing down to a science where the end products are nearly
touching in every direction, but not quite. If you're nervous, give them plenty of space
to begin with, and just make more batches. You don't want a big contiguous blob of cookie,
although it'd probably be salvageable.
How long to bake? Well, I put mine on the middle rack and give them anywhere from 10 to 12
minutes. Sometimes they seem to take a little longer than the basic 10. It really is pretty hard to screw
these up, but overbaking them is not a good idea. You want them just to cook enough to be
thoroughly baked, but not dry. Once they're done, you may want to give them a few minutes
to cool down before separating them from the pan. Sometimes they are so soft you can't
pick them off without breaking them. If they seem overly gooey and wet inside (in other words, they are still dough), they aren't done.
If you *preheated* the oven correctly, that shouldn't be the case! I prefer to cool my cookies
on racks. Some people use newspapers or grocery bags. For some reason I'm somewhat grossed
out by that, and stickwita rack, yo. You don't want to cool them forever, or you'll dry the
bastards out. Give them fifteen minutes
or so, then seal 'em up in plastic Tupperwaretm or Gladwaretm or something
similar, something that seals, damnit! I suppose a Ziplocktm bag would work. This will trap the moisture in and keep
them fresh for the couple of days it takes you to eat them. I've never had cookies go
moldy on me, because they never last long enough. Moist is good. I am far too spoiled on
these, and haven't bought processed-food cookies (like Oreotm) in at least half
a year...