To celebrate completing another certification exam (fingers and toes crossed that I passed), I whipped up some chocolate chip cookies. Because all my regularly scheduled chocolate chip cookie recipes are packed away somewhere in the depths of a storage unit, I searched for a new recipe. This is what I found. So far I have heard no complaints from my trusty taste testers.
Here is the recipe:
Ingredients
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons hot water
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (or white chocolate chips)
1/2 cup dried cherries (optional)
1 cup chopped walnuts (or macadamia nuts) (optional)
Preheat the over to 350 degrees (I have to turn my oven up to 370 degrees since it has its own temperature agenda regardless of what the knob says.
Cream butter and both sugars until smooth. Add in one egg at a time, continue mixing. Add vanilla- keep mixing. In a measuring cup mix together the baking soda and hot water- allow to dissolve then add to the batter. Mix in your flour (you may want to try reducing the flour to 2 1/2 cups rather than the full 3 cups unless you prefer cakey cookies. I do not, so there you go).
At this stage, I equally divide the dough into 2 separate containers. Since I have a soy sensitivity I have to use soy free chocolate chips. My husband, on the other hand, prefers regular old chocolate chips. Because of this dilemma, 1/2 the dough gets 1 cup regular chocolate chips and then the remaining 1/2 dough gets a cup of the soy free chocolate chips as well as the 1/2 (or so) of dried cherries.
Spoon the dough out onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for about 10 minutes. I baked mine for about 15 minutes per each cookie sheet because they were having a little trouble browning. Other than that, they turned out quite nice.
Let cool or just start eating if you can handle the burn. I suggest waiting at least long enough that the steam coming off the cookies subsides.
Makes about 4 dozen.
Good for sharing with nice people. If you don't know any nice people, you need to get out more! If you are offering them cookies many people can become nice. Do not be hoodwinked- only the nice people should get cookies.
I saw a shirt a while back that said "Come to the Dark Side, We have Cookies." Well said.
Have a nice weekend!
