Jenny’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

I love sweets. The past few days, all I’ve been able to think about is eating. I finally figured out why I’m having cravings. Hormones getting back on track and all that. No I’m not pregnant again. Positively not pregnant, things are just getting back to normal.

I have been raiding the pantry wishing we had cookies, staring into the freezer wondering where the chocolate Breyer’s ice cream went, gazing into the liquor cabinet thinking of whipping up a special hot chocolate. You know those days. I guess after a good day of wishing for cookies, I broke down and made some.

I don’t know why I resisted so much. Maybe it had something to do with feeling fat and frumpy and trying to be good. My mission Get Skinny is coming along much more slowly than I would like. But I’ve had many setbacks, namely all the yummy donuts and cookies that are so hard to resist.

I have very low resistance when it comes to chocolate chip cookies. I can inhale a half dozen off the cooling rack before I realize where they went.

“So good, just one more” runs through my head as I pick up the next warm, soft, fragrant cookie. The warm molten chocolate melts over my tongue as the heady vanilla fragrance fills my nostrils. Heaven!

So today, I have no cookies to share, because the cookies just vanished before I could get the camera. I honestly don’t know where they all went. Must be a cookie burglar in the neighborhood.

Ahem.

Ingredients for high-altitude cookies
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup salted butter, softened
1/2 cup shortening
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) Semisweet chocolate chips (Nestle, Hershey, Ghiradelli)
1/2 cup chopped pecans, if you want them

Method
1. Using a KitchenAid stand mixer with the flat beater attachment, cream together butter, shortening, brown sugar, and regular sugar.

2. Add eggs and vanilla. Beat well.

3. In a separate bowl combine flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Add this mixture to the wet ingredients in additions of about a cup and mix well.

4. Add chocolate chips to bowl and mix in by hand with a wooden spoon. I do this to keep from breaking off their tips. Also, the mixer tends to crush the chips into the bottom of the mixing bowl.

5. Drop by teaspoons onto an ungreased AirBake pan. Lighter metal pans will give you more time for the centers to set up without getting burned. Dark metal pans tend to cook the bottoms too fast and the top stays too light and mushy for me.  I know this is partially my own preference, and partially one typical issue of cooking at altitude.

6. Bake at 375F for 9-12 minutes.

7. If you don’t feel like baking them all, you can freeze this dough and use it later. I lay out a piece of plastic wrap. Drop clumps of dough into a rough log shape on top of the wrap, running lengthwise down the center. Press the dough together into a firm log, then roll up the wrap around it. I cover it with foil, mark the flavor and date made, then freeze.

7 1/2. To bake, unwrap, cut off slices about ¼ inch thick and place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 for about 10-13 minutes.

This should make  3-4 dozen cookies, depending on their size, and how much dough you sneakily eat.