I didn't bake before I started this blog and started trying a bunch of new things, with one exception: I made chocolate chip cookies. It wasn't anything special, it was always the standard, back of the bag, Nestle Tollhouse recipe. Even if enjoyable these really didn't seem worthy of a blog post, which was fine, obviously.
My wife has long liked Joanna Gaines, of Fixer Upper and Magnolia in Waco, TX (shocker I know), and has bought a couple of her cookbooks. The first one, 'Magnolia Table,' has some recipes I've tried for dinners recently. They've had mixed results so far but there's been one food item out of there I've absolutely loved. And that's her version of chocolate chip.
Don't worry, these are still as easy as it gets when it comes to baking, as this type of cookie should be. The big difference in her recipe is that it only uses brown sugar, no granulated.
What you'll need:
2+1/2 cups all purpose flour, spooned and leveled
1 overflowing teaspoon baking soda
1 stick (8 tbsp) salted butter, room temp
2 cups brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
1+1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 bag (10-12 oz) chocolate chips
Quick version:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. In large-ish mixing bowl, whisk together flour and baking soda
3. With a stand mixer, with paddle, beat butter and sugar on medium until fluffy
4. Add eggs, mix, add vanilla, mix
5. Pour in bowl of flour/baking soda, slowly at first then high for a few seconds
6. Add chocolate chips, high for a few seconds to combine and finish dough
7. Use large silverware spoons (the 'tablespoon' not generally used for measuring) to grab dough, drop and space out on baking sheet, preferably lined with parchment paper
8. Bake for ~10 minutes
9. Pull out before much browning, move to cooling rack after few minutes
Notes:
The original recipe calls for unsalted butter and 1/2 tsp salt. We usually have salted butter so I skipped the added salt. I took a cold stick of butter out of the fridge and microwaved it like 10 seconds, close enough to room temp right? Our bag of chocolate chips, dark morsels this time, was 10 oz instead of 12 and that was fine too.
When scooping the dough with a non-exact utensil do your best to get the same size for each cookie but don't stress about it. Mine were fairly big and I ended up with 35, btw. Barely shape the dough 'balls' at all, just maybe squeeze them enough so they hold together. Put another way, do not flatten or roll them.
We prefer slightly undercooked, soft cookies. They were barely getting browned on the tops when I pulled them out at 10 minutes. Our oven also runs a bit hot. You may want to leave them in a minute or two longer based on your preferences and oven.
I baked about half the dough balls from this batch and froze the rest. Stored in a freezer bag it's great to be able to bake some cookies without having to make the dough. It barely adds any time, if at all, to bake from frozen.
This is now my favorite way to make my favorite cookie. The heavy brown sugar with the chocolate is an amazing combination. Give it a try! Thanks Joanna.
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