Cookie Tips

I hoped I'd just be able to share an amazing chocolate chip cookie recipe with you, but instead I've got some good tips to share. I'll share the recipe, too, but just keep in mind that I haven't made it correctly yet.

Lats night I got the craving for home made chocolate chip cookies. (And it cooled down enough for me to make them) There's no better kind of cookie than a home made one. I remembered that I had a recipe from my Great Grandmother's cook book. I just had to try it out! This is the kind of recipe where the only thing included is a list of the ingredients. I've made cookies before so I know that it only takes 7 steps, as Suzie illustrates here.

The easiest way for me to explain the things I learned last night is to give you the ingredients listed and go from there.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1/2 white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 well beaten egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sifted flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon hot water
1 six ounce package chocolate chips
1/2 cup nuts

Obviously margarine is cheaper, and was used much more often back then than it is now. I used butter, though, because I prefer it.

The fact that there is only 1/4 cup of brown sugar in the recipe means the cookies aren't as dark as some chocolate chip cookies I've made. My mom had to ask me if I put any in at all.

We didn't have any vanilla. I could have just left it out, but instead I decided to experiment. I added a few drops of almond extract, and a dash of cinnamon. They gave the cookies a different flavor that we all really like.

The flour needs to be sifted if a recipe calls for it. This is one of the first things I learned when I began cooking. We don't own a sifter, so I put 1/2 cup unsifted flour in a bowl and whisked it for a minute or two. It came out exactly as if I'd bought and used a sifter. Always start out with about half the amount it says you'll need. When flour is sifted you end up with a lot more of it than you start with. The 1/2 unsifted flour gave me the 1 cup + 2 tablespoons needed.

Even though the recipe calls for 6 ounces of chocolate chips I only put in what we had left in one bag, which was about 4 ounces. It seems like that was a good amount.

I do not like nuts in my cookies, so I never put them in. This turned out to me my biggest mistake last night. When a recipe calls for nuts, and you don't add them in, sometimes you need to add a little extra flour to make up for it. I didn't do this last night and I ended up with very flat cookies.


That is not how a chocolate chip cookie is supposed to look. They taste fine, but I still feel dumb for messing up. Especially because I made the same mistake with a different batch of cookies last month. I guess I needed to make it again in order to learn from it.

It doesn't say a cooking time or temperature, but I used the universal baking temp., 350 degrees. I just watched to make sure they didn't burn. The time it takes depends on how big you make the cookies.

The recipe took a little bit longer because I had to beat the egg and sift the flour, and I only got a dozen cookies from it. The dough tasted amazing, though! I do plan to make them again, even if it's just to prove that I can. I'll show you how they look when I decide to make them. I hope they turn out a little less flat.

By the way, I'm back from the dentist. The whole right side of my mouth is numb. They did work on the top and bottom. I ended up with 3 shots of novocain, because I needed two shots on the top. I don't know why the top of my mouth doesn't numb well, they had to do the same thing last time. I hope it wears off before I get hungry for lunch, I don't want to eat with a half numb mouth.