By Brooke Rees
About a year ago, I went on a quest to find the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe.
I had two motivations: 1. Hunger, 2. To take down the monopoly that is Nestlé Toll House. No one should be that powerful.
After trying several recipes that falsely proclaimed that they were “the best chocolate chip cookies you will ever taste” (I’ll be suing them for libel), I realized that if I wanted to eat some good chocolate chip cookies, I was just going to have to make my own recipe. You know what they say: if you want to destroy capitalism and have the perfect amount of chocolate in every bite, you have to do it yourself.
After several months of making slight adjustments and raising my blood sugar, I can now say, without a shred of doubt (according to my lawyers), that I have made the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe. Out of the kindness of my heart, I will share this recipe with you now under the sole provision that I receive 5 percent of all cookies made with this recipe. I’m just so sick of baking them myself.
Ingredients:
2 sticks salted butter
¾ cup granulated sugar (that's the normal kind for you baking novices)
¾ cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs (what does large mean? Idk. Does it look like the chicken was probably slightly uncomfortable laying it? Then it's probably good.)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (honestly, you can just eyeball this shit. Let your heart guide you)
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 bag chocolate chunks
½ bag mini chocolate chips
½ semi-sweet chocolate bar, chopped into fine bits
Instructions:
Cream together (that means whisk really fast) the butter (which should be at room temperature) with both kinds of sugar, using either a standing mixer, hand mixer, or just super fast hands. Add in one egg at a time, beating well after each addition. Then, add in your vanilla extract and give it a little stir again. Then, add all of your dry ingredients, and stir just enough until it's all incorporated. Separate but equal is not right; we learned this. Get all those ingredients all mixed in together (and then oppress some of them, but pretend not to!).
Now, time to mix in all of your chocolate. Why that much chocolate, you might ask? I’m not sure why you would ask, unless you were the police officer assigned to the investigation of Augustus Gloop’s death at the Willy Wonka Factory, but just in case you’re not and you’re still wondering: Chocolate chunks: bigger, sexier, we need them. Mini chocolate chips: tiny and adorable, make me feel like a powerful giant. Finely chopped chocolate bar: melts into the dough and makes life better.
Bake at 350ºF for about 10 minutes or until they start to look golden on top. You really just got to watch them carefully, like your children at a playground once we learned that serial killers exist. Let them cool for a little bit or dive right in and burn your taste buds like the daredevil you are! Enjoy!
Other tips and tricks for your holiday baking:
Tip #1
Sugar cookies are the go-to for cookie cutter Christmas cookies. Once you’ve cut out your shapes and arranged them on the baking tray, make sure to slap those bad boys back in the fridge for at least ten minutes. While you’ve been messing around with your dough, the butter has softened. If you pop your cookies immediately in the oven, this too-soft butter is what makes your cookie shapes expand and spread, and it causes your stockings to look like infected penises. No one wants that, unless you’re at a raunchy bachelorette party!
Tip #2
Want a cool festive cookie but don’t want to waste time with the cookie cutters? Use an engraved rolling pin like the one pictured! There are tons of Christmas and winter-themed designs. To use, simply roll out your dough with a normal rolling pin, and then give it a swipe with the engraved one. You’ll be amazed to see the pattern roll right onto the cookie!
Savory options: I recently purchased a small rosemary bush from Whole Foods, and then I promptly killed it a week later. I then RE-purchased another rosemary bush (I remembered to water it, but let’s be honest: it's living on borrowed time) and made this wonderful rosemary focaccia. If you love baking but are a bit overwhelmed with all the sweets, give this recipe a try. I halved the recipe and just made one circular sexy loaf, but boy do I wish I had made the full serving. It was so good that, for a moment, I forgot about the crushing weight of mortality. And isn’t that all we can ask for in an amazing baked good?
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