My Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

Everyone has their favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe and this one is mine. I've been making it for years and while I've tried many other recipes, I just keep coming back to this one. It's an old Better Homes and Garden recipe from 1963. It's a very basic recipe that produces the perfect chewy cookie. Just the right amount of chocolate chips and chopped nuts. Of course you can omit the nuts if you don't like them, perhaps add more chocolate chips or just omit them altogether. I usually use walnuts because they are my favorite, but use whatever nuts you like or have on hand.

The original recipe says to use part butter and part shortening. Now, I've made these with all butter more than I have with part shortening. I personally have no issues using vegetable shortening in my baking, but I know some people think it's unhealthy. I don't really think it's a problem in moderation (as with practically anything). But I have to say, the shortening does make these cookies extra lovely and chewy. The all butter can make the cookies spread a bit more, which is okay but not really what I look for in my perfect chocolate chip cookie. Either way, whether you use all butter or part, I think it produces a lovely cookie. In this batch I added 1 stick butter with the remaining 3 1/3 tablespoons shortening. Even that little bit of shortening made them just the way I like them without sacrificing any flavor.

When I make a batch of these cookies, I keep a few in our cookie jar and the rest in the freezer. Mom used to freeze balls of cookie dough and then bake them directly from the freezer when needed. That works as well, but I have found they don't spread as nicely when you bake from frozen. So I just bake the entire batch and freeze any I don't think we'll eat in a day or two.

I hope I've inspired you to keep your cupboards stocked with all the ingredients to make these. Because you never know when you'll get a hankering for chocolate chip cookies!


CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
1/3 cup unsalted butter
1/3 cup shortening (I used 1/2 cup butter and 3 1/3 tablespoons shortening for this batch)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar (packed)
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. table salt
1/2 cup chopped nuts
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (6 oz.)

Pre-heat oven to 375°F. Mix butter/shortening, sugars, egg, and vanilla thoroughly. Stir dry ingredients together and blend in the butter mixture until just incorporated (don't over mix). Mix in nuts and chocolate chips. Drop in teaspoonfuls about 2" apart on ungreased baking sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes or until delicately browned. (Cookies should still be soft.) Cool slightly before removing from baking sheet. Makes over 2 dozen (I used a tablespoon cookie scoop).

Lighter Morning Glory Muffins

Here is a recipe I recently made that I thought I would share with you. The original muffin recipe is already pretty healthy, however I really wanted to experiment a bit more with it (mostly cutting down the sugar and swapping out the oil for applesauce). They aren't quite as sweet, but they are very hearty muffins and I think they turned out quite nice. A cup of hot coffee, a spread of butter and I'm set for the day! I hope you like these muffins as much as I do. Let me know if you make them and what you think!

LIGHTER MORNING GLORY MUFFINS

Recipe adapted from Martha Stewart

Makes: 12-16 muffins

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/4 cups white whole wheat flour
• 1/3 cup dark brown sugar 
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg 
• 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt 
• 1 cup old fashioned rolled oats 
• 1/3 cup raisins 
• 3 tablespoons unsweetened applesauce 
• 1 large egg 
• 1/3 cup skim milk 
• 4 medium carrots, shredded 
• 1 medium ripe banana, mashed
• 1 tablespoon espresso coffee, cooled (optional)
• Nonstick cooking spray

Preheat oven to 400°F

Grease a 12-cup muffin tin with cooking spray.

1. If adding the coffee, brew now and let cool. I use my 1-cup Moka Express to brew my espresso.
2. Mash banana on a flat plate using a fork, shred carrots and set both aside. 
3. In a large bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder, nutmeg and salt. Stir in oats and raisins. Add in your applesauce, egg, milk, shredded carrots, mashed banana and espresso (not sure if it makes a huge change to the taste, but I kind of like the addition of strong coffee in my muffins). Stir until everything is blended. 
4. Evenly distribute batter to all 12 muffin cups (I actually tend to use more like 16 cups, but this makes a slightly smaller muffin). Bake for 20-25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Because I live at a higher altitude, I find things bake faster here (or maybe it's just my oven), so I usually check a little earlier than the recipe states. 

NUTRITION
Per muffin (12 muffins)

How To Bake: {Heart Shaped} Cinnamon Rolls

My favorite food in all the world: CINNAMON ROLLS! I thought I would try making them into heart shapes for Valentine's Day, although they didn't turn out quite as heart shaped as I would have liked! Regardless of how they look, the recipe is the same and it's the one I have used over and over again for years.

Also, you will notice I used goat milk powder in this recipe, but you can easily substitute regular cow's milk. I try to stay off of cow's milk, which is why I tend to use goat milk powder a lot in my baking.

Happy Baking!

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making bagels.

I've made bagels once before, so I kind of knew what I was doing this round. I can't remember which recipe I used the first time I made them, so I consulted my "How to Cook Everything" cookbook by Mark Bittman and sure enough, he had a recipe. I'm not super in love with how they turned out, but they are still good! I think I should have let them rise 12 hours instead of only 2. I'm sure they would have been more flavorful. Also, this time I made a cinnamon, sugar topping (1/4 c. brown sugar, 1/4 c. white and 2 tsp. cinnamon), which is probably quite bad for you and also a bit messy! But they were really yummy with the added sugar. Next time I'm going to try making cinnamon raisin bagels. I also don't have a food processor, so I just mixed and kneaded the dough by hand. Hope some of you give bagel making a try! It's quite a bit of fun, especially forming the bagels (which I obviously haven't quite mastered yet)!

More pictures from this set found on my flickr.

By the way, if you don't have Mark Bittman's cookbook, I found his bagel recipe here.