Hi Everyone,
I hope you had a great weekend and Monday. James and I ended up making the trip with my family to the Indiana Dunes. James had a blast. He loved playing in the sand and tasting it. He tasted all different types of sand, both dry and wet. James also really liked the waves. The water was a little cold so we didn't spend a super long time in the water but he had so much fun when the waves were lift him up and down in his little floatie. Don't worry I held onto him the whole time.
In my quest to eat healthier and lose weight I’ve really been trying to cut back on baking so I haven’t been able to really try out a cookie recipe for my chocolate chip cookie recipe search but early this week on Monday I did and I will say that these will probably be the winning unless something really big comes out of left field. I did have the idea last week that maybe I should try out all the heavy hitters in the baking world cookie recipes - Martha, Paula, Betty and maybe even Rachel. So far I have just been looking up recipes on pinterest but I think it will be interesting to see what I find. Today I’m gonna take about Betty Crocker’s recipe. In full disclosure I have made these cookies before so I had an idea what to expect but really my opinion on them has gone up since trying out all these other cookies.
I will say that what makes this recipe really different is the amount of ingredients. It uses almost double the regular tollhouse recipe but thats what makes it so good. Not only do you get these big cookies (the recipe calls for 1/4 scopes) but you also get 27 of them, maybe 28 or more if you don’t test the batter. One thing I’ve noticed about some recipes is that you get these big cookies but you only end up making 10 cookies or so. And I know I’ve said this all before, I don’t want to spend all this time and effort for 10 cookies. I will say, I would recommend probably pre rolling and freezing half of the batter because by the end of the week (We still have cookies left) you will want them out of your house or you are afraid you will eat all of them and really dislike yourself later.
The only downside of this recipe is the quality of the ingredients that you need. You need 4 cups of chocolate chips and 1 1/2 cups of butter or 3 sticks and the reason (for me) why this is a downside is because I don’t normally find myself with this on hand and I have to go out and buy it to make these cookies. To buy the chocolate chips and the butter cost me almost $10 at the grocery store. One of things that I’ve always enjoyed about chocolate chip cookies is being able to make them whenever but this isn't’ the case with this recipe.
This recipe comes out of the Betty Crocker Baking Basics cookbook. I really like this cookbook. It has a ton of recipes and is great for someone who is just getting into baking or someone who just wants a ton of basic recipes. Maybe in the future I’ll do a review and share some of my favorite recipes.
When I first tried this recipe I was pretty skeptical of the title ‘Best Chocolate Chip Cookies’ by this time I had tried a couple of recipes and I wasn’t sure if this was going to hold up but it didn’t let me down.
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups butter or margarine (3 sticks), room temperature
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla (I used more, about 1 teaspoon but I really like vanilla)
2 large eggs
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 bag (24 oz) semisweet chocolate chips (4 cups)
2 cups coarsely chopped nuts, if desired ( I didn’t use nuts)
Directions:
Preheat over to 375 and line cookie sheets (if you want, I didn’t because I ran out of parchment paper and they stilled turned out great)
In a large bowl, beat the butter, both sugars, vanilla and eggs with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. You are working with more ingredients so this will take longer and may require a higher speed than normal. Stir in the flour, baking soda and salt (the dough will be stiff). I like to add the flour one cup at a time. Around cups 3 the dough will look like it’s at this max but go ahead and add the final cup, it will all work out in the end. Stir in the chocolate chips. If you don’t like your cookies crazy chocolatey I would maybe take a cup of chocolate chips away especially if you add the nuts.
For each cookie, scoop dough with 1/4 measuring cup. Using the back of a knife (or I just did the edge of the bowl) level the dough even with the top of the cup. You do want to make sure the cookies are roughly the same size, this helps them cook in about the same amount of time. Push the dough onto the cookie sheet with a spoon or rubber spatula, placing the cookies 2 inches apart. Flatten slight with a fork. I placed 6 cookies per baking sheet.
Bake them for 12 to 15 minutes. I always set my timer a minute behind so I can see how they are coming along and if they need a little more time or not. Then I set them on the pan for a couple of minutes to let them cook just a tad bit more. Then moved them to the island to cool completely.
Betty said to let the pans cool for about 10 minutes between each batch so I did. Betty knows her stuff.
Review
Taste: 5 -These cookies are great in taste, besides the chocolate, all the ingredients just blend together so well, nothing stands out - good and bad.
Appearance: 5, I would give these cookies a 6 if I could. But yet I'm in charge so they get a 6. These cookies are lightly brown on top but still soft in the middle, this is what cookie dreams are made of.
Dunk ability: 5. I think it should be a requirement to dunk these cookies. Even with the large amount of chocolate chips these cookies stay together so well.
Removability: 5. I ran out of parchment paper but that didn't phrase these cookies. They came off so easily and didn't even leave behind a trace.
Affordability: 3. The only downside of this recipe. With the extra 2 cups of chocolate chips and the extra stick of butter, it really raises the cost of these cookies. But if you consider how much the recipe does make, it's not too bad.
I would highly recommend you grab a big glass of milk before you eat one. You're gonna need it.
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