About Chocolate Chip Cookies

Mmm... cookies. I mentioned over here that I have exactly two cookie recipes (because my boyfriend is some sort of freak of nature who doesn't like dessert), and this is exactly one of them (that my freak-of-nature boyfriend will actually eat). And my hopes in sharing this is that I'll convince you how quick and easy it is to make chocolate chip cookies yourself, from scratch, because those fake-o take-and-bake brands? SUCK DONKEY BALLS.

Your shopping list for about 3-4 dozen cookies, assuming you don't already have these ingredients in your pantry (which I almost always do):

• 2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature (Always buy unsalted butter! This way YOU get to control how much salt goes into your food, and not some faceless manufacturer! POWER TO THE PEOPLE!)
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3/4 light brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour (Preferably unbleached; it tastes better and is better for you! See, I'm making cookies healthy! DON'T SAY I NEVER DID ANYTHING FOR YOU!)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 375F.

Cream together the butter and sugars. If you have an electric hand mixer now's the time to use it. (Mine is yellow! Like my kitchen!)



It should look about like this when you're done:



Next, add the eggs one at a time and beat until well blended. The add the vanilla extract and, again, beat until well blended.



Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl. I like to sift it all together through my fine mesh colander, just to make sure I don't end up with any random pockets of baking soda, because have you tasted baking soda toothpaste? GROSS.



Now add your dry ingredients to your wet ingredients by hand, a third at a time, stirring to blend. Try not to stir it forever and ever and ever; there's this thing with the proteins in flour and gluten or whatever, and basically what happens when you overwork your dough is you get really tough, mealy cookies. Again, gross.



Add the chocolate chips. Here I actually ran out of chocolate chips, so I added some peanut butter chips too. You could easily replace some of the chips with nuts. (Heh.)



Give it a quick stir. You'll see that this batter is pretty damn chippy, because chips (of all varieties, incidentally) are DELICIOUS.



Then, drop tablespoonful-sized mounds onto ungreased cookie sheets. I line mine with parchment paper because I'm lazy and I don't like to do dishes. But maybe you're not lazy and you're some sort of freak of nature who actually likes to do dishes, then by all means, skip the parchment paper.

Make sure your cookie mounds are spread out, because they're cookies, and when they're cooked they'll actually be shaped like cookies. I know, SHOCKING.



Bake them until lightly browned, about 10-12 minutes. Then let them cool on the sheet for around 2 minutes before transferring to a rack to finish cooling.

Next thing you know, COOKIES!