For years, I’ve tried to find a chocolate chip cookie recipe that tasted remotely as good as the insanely preservative-filled ones that you can buy at the store or buy in dough-form to bake for yourself. After coming very close several times, I think I finally stumbled across one that everyone should have the ingredients for already, and tastes possibly better than all of those *other* cookies. Here’s the recipe:

3/4 cup each white and brown sugar *
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup (or one stick) butter or margarine, softened **
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla (try to avoid imitation vanilla)
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 cup (or more to taste) chocolate chips

*: I use light brown sugar. If you don’t have brown sugar at all, you can substitute 1 and 1/2 cups white sugar and 1/2 tbsp. of molasses.
**: Butter gives a better flavor, but margarine is easier to work with for creaming the ingredients together.

Using a hand mixer, cream together the sugar, shortening, butter, eggs and vanilla. It may help to sift the sugar, first. (I tend to just use a sieve as it will catch all of the big chunks, at least.) Then, sift in your flour and baking soda. You can try to mix this with your hand mixer, but it’s reasonably thick, so if your mixer is underpowered, it may be best to mix it by hand until you no longer see clumps of flour and the dough seems uniform. Add your chocolate chips (you can add nuts if you like, too) and stir in with a wooden spoon. Place the bowl into the fridge for at least half an hour.

Preheat your oven to 350°F. From there, you have a lot of options for your cookies. You can use two spoons to drop cookies 2″ apart on a cookie sheet (I use silicone mats underneath). You can form the dough into a log in parchment or wax paper and slice off 1/4 inch pieces (this works best to make uniform cookies, and anything you don’t use can be rolled back up and put in a plastic bag and kept in the freezer until you want more cookies). Additionally, you can use what it called a cookie scoop (it looks like a small ice cream scoop), although you’ll want to flatten these out a bit with you fingers or a spoon in order to let the cookies bake evenly.

This is a log of frozen cookie dough.

This is a log of frozen cookie dough.


Bake for 8-10 minutes. Let cool for about 5 minutes. You can then transfer your cookies to a cooling rack and get on with making more. These cookies have just enough crunch, but are still soft enough that they’re in no danger of hurting your teeth. Also, the dough? Quite possibly better tasting than the cookies themselves. I’ve been known to whack a chunk off of my freezer-roll and eat it raw. Yum.
Yes. So big only 6 fit on a pan.

Yes. So big only 6 fit on a pan.

As for other necessary baking recipes, what about brownies? There really is no point in buying a box of mix when they’re just as easy to make at home. Here’s how:

2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp. vanilla (try to avoid imitation vanilla)
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Place the beaten eggs, vanilla and oil into a bowl.

Eggs, oil and vanilla start-o!

Eggs, oil and vanilla start-o!

Sift in the rest of your ingredients (or put through a sieve).
Sift everything else in.

Sift everything else in.

Using a spatula or wooden spoon, stir the ingredients together.
It'll look like this at first.

It'll look like this at first.


But will quickly turn to this.

But will quickly turn to this.

When the mixture is uniform, pour into a greased pan or dish (I use silicone bakeware whenever I can because it rarely needs greasing [in the form of cooking spray/butter rubbed around/shortening brushed on/etc.]).
It'll be really shiny.

It'll be really shiny.

Bake for 20-25 minutes. Go toward the shorter end if you like your brownies gooey. If you like them a bit more thoroughly cooked, keep them in until 25 minutes have passed.
Not the prettiest thing in this pan, but still delicious.

Not the prettiest thing in this pan, but still delicious.

Keep in mind that all baked goods will continue to cook some once they’re pulled from the oven if you do a toothpick test. Although, pretty much all brownies are a consistency where they will stick to a toothpick, so watch for the difference between uncooked batter and simply brownie smudges on your toothpick. This is not a lot of batter, so if you like thicker brownies, cook them in a smaller container (or in muffin cups) and you may need to add a few minutes to the cooking time. These brownies are so delicious on their own that they don’t need frosting, but if you prefer one anyway for extra chocolate added to the affair? Wait until your brownies are cooled, and add this:

3 tbsp. softened butter or margarine
1 tbsp. honey
3 tbsp. cocoa powder
1/2 tsp. vanilla (try to stay away from imitation)
1 cup powdered sugar
1-2 tbsp. milk

Cream all but the powdered sugar and milk together. Mix in the powdered sugar until the mixture is somewhat stiff. Add the milk (add one tbsp. to start with) until it reaches a spreadable consistency. Add more milk (no more than one tbsp.) as needed. If the mixture is not suitably spreadable (or if you’d rather just pour it on your brownies), place it in the microwave in 30 second increments until it reaches the desired consistency. A warm icing *will* sink into your baked goods, but that’s not always a bad thing. ^_^

{09 May 2009} {Tags: , , , }