"There's only one hard and fast rule in running: sometimes you have to run one hard and fast."








Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Steve's Evil Kitchen: Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

Until now, I've never published a recipe, as I think of baking as magic and I don't want to give away the secrets. I'm making an exception because these cookies aren't very magical. There's absolutely nothing wrong with them - I engineered out all the flaws - but they turned out to be very basic cookies. Perhaps I've just grown sick of eating the various trial batches. I used a couple of ingredients that no "real" cook would; for me, the taste is more important than the protocol. The recipe is overly fussy, but it works. The cookies are crisp on the edges, then chewier and gooier further in and even a little cakey and doughy at the center.

Ingredients
1/3 c. unsalted butter
2/3 c. vegetable shortening
2 1/4 c. all-purpose unbleached flour
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 Tbsp. milk
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 c. white sugar
1 1/4 c. light brown sugar, firmly packed
1 large egg plus one yolk
1 Tbsp. corn syrup
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 c. semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

Sift together the flour, salt and cinnamon. Melt the butter and shortening. Heat the milk and dissolve the baking soda in it.

Pour the melted butter and shortening into a mixer's work bowl and add the sugar and brown sugar. Cream the butter and sugar together. Add the egg, yolk, baking soda and milk, corn syrup and vanilla extract and mix thoroughly. Add the flour, no more than 1/3 at a time, until completely combined. Stir in 1 1/2 cups of the chocolate chips. Store the dough in a refrigerator, wrapped in plastic wrap, overnight.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Form the dough into balls, slightly smaller than golf ball size (recipe makes 30-32 cookies) and place them on baking sheets, pressing the tops of the balls down flat [I did only six at a time, but they don't spread much, so one could do as many as 12 per sheet]. Use the remaining chocolate chips to evenly decorate the tops of the cookies. Bake for about 10 minutes, center rack, until the edges of the cookies turn toast brown [I used dark baking sheets and they took only 9 minutes and were very slightly overdone on the bottom], rotating the sheets after 5 minutes to ensure even browning.

Remove sheets from oven and let the cookies rest on the sheets 2 minutes before transferring to cooling racks. Cool completely, then store in an airtight container.
....................
A variation I want to try is to make them Mexican, by using Mexican chocolate, Mexican vanilla, Mexican cinnamon and substituting lard for the butter and shortening.

9 comments:

JojaJogger said...

I just signed up for the Afton 50K. Please tell me you'll be there with some goodies from your evil kitchen.

Glaven Q. Heisenberg said...

Bitch, I can beat your 11-0 twins. I took my 11 yo to see the Phillies' ACE last nite and he lost 9-0!

But we just watched them come back today from a 3-0 deficit to win 4-3. After 16 or 17innings of no scoring.

We had a great time last night despite how it went. (It truly was closer than it seemed.)

But today's win made up for it.


Cliff Lee kept them in the game, even tho he didn't ge the decision. But he is the MAN.

If there hadn't been a rain out, we'd've sen Le last night!
Still, we got to se Doc.

So no complaints here in Mid-Northish Joisey.

Glaven Q. Heisenberg said...

Fucking iPad!

Misspellings galore.

But you get my point.

Keith said...

The ipad keyboard just kills me. Till I started typing on it, I didn't know I rested my fingers on the keyboard. Neither did I know how often my fingers pawed the keyboard looking for those little nubs. Plus there is the spelling correction. Grrr.

Keith said...

Oh, and I was going to comment on the cookie recipie. Thanks for sharing. I'll have to try it out and see what I think.

Glaven Q. Heisenberg said...

Where you hiding? You just commented on MY blog, so I know that means you're on the verge of posting ...

SteveQ said...

6 comments and only one of them about Phillies baseball?

I just signed up for Afton. I'll bring some confectionery, but given past years, its best to catch me before the race...

RBR said...

Sorry, bub. I just don't buy the whole "I am baker" thing from some skinny dude with a crunchy granola looking ponytail. My guess is that they are actually made with whole grain flour, no eggs, no butter, and carob or some other such baking abomination.

I am going to need proof before you can sell that line of hooey. (oh yes, I said "hooey"! You start talking about things as emotionally charged as the atrocity known as vegan "baking" and the potty mouth on me just lets loose!)

Jean said...

This looks like a fantastic recipe. I love the idea of adding cinnamon. It is fun to incorporate ingredients that add a pleasant and unexpected surprise. I am copying down this recipe. Thanks for sharing!