The Sure Thing Chocolate Chip Cookies

I think Chocolate Chip Cookies are always a good idea. I'm a fan.
They are a crowd pleaser- no matter the eater's age, no matter what the occasion, no matter what the menu.  They are classic and delicious.

The chocolate chip cookie recipe I typically use is the one printed on the Nestle’s Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chip bag.  How can you go wrong with that?

(And my other go-to variety, when I want a little twist, is my sister’s Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie.)

My only struggle with chocolate chip cookies (other than limiting the number of them that I consume) is that it’s hard to use real butter and have consistent results:  in cookies with good body that don’t go flat. And yet I want to use real butter (instead of  Crisco or margarine). 

Recently, my friend Melissa B. shared a chocolate chip cookie with me that she believes is “the one”.  She (like me) loves salty/sweet and so she sprinkles some coarse salt on the scooped dough before baking.  Y-U-M. The texture and body were ideal, and they were just delicious.    She had the recipe written on a card with no source noted.  (She doesn’t remember where she got the recipe so we don't know who to assign credit for it.) I jotted down the recipe and promptly made them the next day.  And about 6 times since! The recipe calls for 1 tsp. baking soda dissolved into 2 tsp. hot water.  We think that must be the trick, along with refrigerating the dough.

I have been trying to name this cookie for the past few weeks (while I make them over and over, and eat them and share them) and I’m so tempted to call them the perfect chocolate chip cookie. But I can't.

If you are on Pinterest and type in “the perfect chocolate chip cookie”, gobs of photos and accompanying recipes pop up.  The truth that I have realized is, what one person calls the perfect chocolate chip cookie is very different from what another person calls perfect.  I have long been searching for the “perfect chocolate chip cookie”.  I have made many recipes that claim to be the best, and what I have discovered is that what constitutes a person’s ideal cookie is very personal.

Perfect cookies can be salty, or chewy or cakey, or crunchy.  Some like them really chocolately, some less chocolately,  some dark,  & some milk chocolate.  Some like cookies dense and some like them airy.  So, to claim these cookies as “the perfect chocolate chip cookies” is really a misnomer!

I think they might need to be called the Consistent Chocolate Chip Cookies or The Sure Thing Cookies or the Steady Chocolate Chip Cookies, or maybe THE Chocolate Chip Cookies.  I've been affectionately calling them the Lovely Chocolate Chip Cookies. They have consistently worked and that is what I want in a cookie recipe!   

The Sure Thing Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. hot water

2 tsp. vanilla

3 cups all purpose flour (I use ½ all-purpose and ½ whole wheat pastry flour)

½ tsp. coarse salt

2 cup chocolate chips

coarse salt to sprinkle on top

 

Preheat oven to 350˚

Cream butter and sugar.

Add eggs (one at a time).

Stir in vanilla.

Dissolve baking soda with 2 tsp. hot water, then add to batter.

Add flour and salt and chocolate chips.

Mix until fully incorporated.

Refrigerate dough until good and firm (at least an hour).

Roll or scoop into balls.  Space a little apart on cookie sheet.

Sprinkle tops with a little coarse salt.

Bake 10 minutes- or a little longer depending on size – til golden around edges.

Maybe you should try to make them and let me know what you would name them! In the meantime, I'll just keep making them and eating them.