Chocolate Chip Cookies

You would think that a baking obsessed woman like I am would have many fond memories of crafting an endless variety of goodies from scratch with her mother and grandmother. Especially hailing like I do from the Midwest. Well, I did have many wonderful moments in the kitchen with my mom, but "scratch" and "variety" were not well known there. My mom, sadly, did a lot of her baking from boxes and mixes. I can count on one hand the number of recipes we created from scratch - chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter balls, banana nut muffins, and cinnamon rolls. My favorite was the cookies, and by the time I was twelve I had taken over control of the cookie-making process. I was very particular about how the margarine and sugar were mixed, how my flour was measured, how they were dolloped onto the cookie sheets. I received a lot of praise for my cookies, and they were my signature item.

Then, I went to college, discovered the Food Network Channel and a man called Alton Brown. I realized that all my quirks from childhood had a scientific basis - beating the fat and sugar well, adding extra brown sugar, thoroughly combining the eggs, etc. And he showed me the importance of weighing ingredients, and how a stand mixer is really the only thing that can properly cream butter, and how a disher will create even cookies. He has taught me a lot, and with his aid I have finally perfected my chocolate chip cookies. I may have started with the familiar recipe on the back of a yellow bag, but I have played with amounts and methods until I was satisfied. Warning, this is a large batch - it makes 4 dozen of my large cookies. But the beauty of this is you freeze the scoops of dough, so you can bake off fresh cookies whenever you want.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 lb Butter, softened (2 sticks)
1/2 lb Margarine (2 sticks)
275 g Sugar
300 g Brown Sugar
4 Eggs
2 tsp Vanilla
675 g Flour
12 g Baking Soda (2 tsp)
12 g Salt (2 tsp)
24 oz Chocolate Chips (semi-sweet)

Beat butter in stand mixer with a paddle attachment on medium speed until broken up and pliable. Add margarine and beat until well blended. Add the sugars and beat until the mixture becomes light and fluffy, gaining volume and a consistent texture, scraping bowl as necessary.

Butter and margarine beaten together

After adding the sugar, this is what you're looking for

Scrape down the bowl. In a separate bowl, lightly beat together eggs and vanilla. With mixer on low, drizzle in the egg mixture. Stop and scrape the bowl, then mix together well. 

Egg goes in... 

Yucky looking but... 

Now it's nice and smooth. 

In another bowl mix together flour, salt, and baking soda. You can sift, but my confession is I have no patience for sifting, I just try and stir it together thoroughly. Add the flour mixture to the mixer in stages, at least 3-4 installments, stopping and scraping occasionally. Try and stop once all the flour is blended in, over-mixing leads to tough cookies. Turn mixer on the lowest speed and add chips, letting it run for a minute or two to make sure they're distributed evenly. 

Starting to add the flour

The finished batter. See how light and smooth it is?

Mmmm, chocolate. 

Scoop with a #20 disher (I use an Oxo Good Grips large cookie scoop) onto cookie sheets lined with wax or parchment paper. Go ahead and fit as many as you can on one sheet, this is going in the freezer. After they're nice and solid, pop them in a ziploc bag with a label and date, and freeze for up to 3 months. When you're ready to enjoy, place frozen scoops on cookie sheets and bake at 375 degrees for 13-15 min, rotating the pan halfway through the bake time. If you have the foresight, letting them thaw in the refrigerator will give you a slightly more even bake. Pull cookies out a little before you think they're done, they continue to bake once they leave the oven. I look at the centers of the cookie, and once it loses the shine but still looks a little soft I pull them out. Cool on a cooling rack or wax paper. 

A Little Theory...

If you feel up to learning a bit of the method behind my madness, read on. There are several key points to making good cookies - not just chocolate chip, but oatmeal raisin and peanut butter and snickerdoodle and on and on. It can also be applied to a lot of cakes. It's called - the Creaming Method. The basis of it is the creaming (duh) of butter and sugar together. It's why a stand mixer is kinda important - it's hard to really beat up the butter with a hand mixer or by hand. Butter temperature is important too - too hard and it won't blend nicely, too soft and it starts to melt. It should just give to pressure when you squeeze the stick. What happens is the sugar punches little holes into the soft butter. This creates little uniform bubbles later on in the batter, and leavens a little by mixing in air. Do not underestimate this! Mixing the eggs together separately lets them incorporate into the batter easier, and helps keep the smoothness and texture going. Adding the flour in stages lets it get absorbed slowly, but over mixing also leads to gluten and a tough cookie. If you want a really nice crumb and melt-in-your-mouth feel to the cookie, pay attention to the mixing. 

A little notes behind my specific ingredient ratio, as well. I use a mixture of both butter and margarine because they serve different purposes. Butter has great flavor, but melts easier and therefore makes a thinner cookie. Margarine keeps it nice and puffy. The higher amount of brown to white sugar makes a chewy, moist cookie. Also, baking with cold dough keeps them high and puffy as well. If you plan on baking off the whole lot, just chill it for at least an hour in the refrigerator. I keep mine frozen, and bake off 6-12 at a time when I feel like it. Frozen dough lends to a little more uneven bake - pretty gooey in the middle when the edges are done. I prefer mine that way, but it's your call. Thawing them in the fridge or on the counter for 10 min would be fine too.

If you want to play with your cookie recipe too, check out Alton Brown's "Three Chips for Sister Marsha" (Ep. 34) on  Good Eats Fan Page. He explains a lot of what I did here, and if you prefer a thin, chewy, or puffy cookie he's got the tips to get you there.