Bananniecooks: Tried & True

Baking basic:

Chocolate Chip Cookies 101

Maybe you're reading that all like, "really Banann? I can read the back of the bag of chocolate chips on my own"

No, these are not those chocolate chip cookies. These are the chocolate chip cookies that you give to someone and they take a bite and close their eyes. These are the chocolate chip cookies that make your heart go pitter-patter.

Maybe if you make these you'll wax poetic about cookies too.

Before I tell you what temperature to preheat your oven to, consider making this dough and letting it rest in the fridge for 6-24 hours. Baking is tasty science; letting the dough rest gives it time to absorb everything and meld into a homogeneous mixture of cookie magic.

If you're impatient like I am today and just want a damn cookie, preheat your oven to 325 degrees.

All the usual suspects:

2 cups+ 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt*

12 tablespoons(1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, MELTED**

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 whole egg, room temperature

1 egg yolk, room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 bag(12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup chopped, roasted nuts(I used walnuts)

1/3 cup chopped toffee pieces, this is the secret ingredient but it is also optional

*while table salt is best for baking because of the finer grind of it, I use kosher salt because I think it tastes "less salty" and then I just grind it finer with a mortar & pestle

**most chocolate chip cookies call for softened butter but using melted butter changes the recipe significantly.

Ok, we can begin

Cream the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar until light and fluffy

Creaming butter with sugar gives the dough a fluffy, soft, caramel-y base

It will start out dark and gritty

You will have to cream this far longer than any other recipe will tell you to. I ran my mixer for a solid 8-10 minutes to get the fluffy, light, smooth mixture I wanted. The color will begin to lighten and will just about double in volume.

Once it looks like this the sugars have dissolved into the butter and the butter has a lot of air incorporated into it.

Butter+sugar+air=finer crumb, softer cookie

Add the eggs and vanilla, mix until again, fluffy

Beautiful.

Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda

Sifting=more air

Working in thirds stir/mix/fold in the dry ingredients

1/3:

Working gently and slowly mix in the first 1/3 of the flour mixture. Do this slowly and gently as not to over mix or WORSE get it everywhere including your eyelashes, hair, floor, counter, light fixture, you get it.

Add the next third, repeat mixing slowly

You get it, mix the last 1/3

Yay! Nice and smooth, softly mixed.

A+ Banann

Add the secret ingredient:

The toffee is completely optional, but listen to me when I tell you this bumps your cookies up to some next level kind of stuff. The toffee will melt and become a nuance of caramel-y, malty, hmmm what is that? Just try it.

Fold in the roasted nuts and chocolate chips

Fold GENTLY

Perfect. If you choose to chill this overnight, cover with plastic and put in the fridge.

If you like pretty much instant gratification, line 2(or 3) baking sheets with parchment paper

*I'm using one dark-ish aluminum sheet pan and one square "air bake" style sheet pan. The differences here are the darker pan will absorb heat faster(thus lose heat faster) AND produce a darker bottom on the cookie. The "air bake" pan is essentially 2 sheets on top of eachother with room for air inbetween. It will absorb heat slower(and lose heat slower) and produce a lighter bottom on the cookie, you'll see.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees, if you haven't already

Using 2 tablespoons at a time roll the dough into equal size balls