chocolate chip cookies

[Rachel]

As Shekhar Bhargava looks like her and her 12 children and her cigarettes will be away for a while. I can ask a question that hopefully will come without any genie-inspired definative recipes for the one and only chocolate chip cookie.
What kind of variation do you like? Quantities? Different kinds of flour? Do you ever mix flour? Dare I ask the last question?
As the chocolate chip cookie is one of Americans great contributions to the world of biscuits I am hoping to get a lot of variations. I am then going to have a chocolate chip cookie tasting day with some friends. the other thing I was thinking is what could you drink to accompany them? Drambuie cream? Baileys? Or a milky cocktail???

[Suzanne]

Ah, here I am a simple home baker. I use the standard recipe on the Nestle choc chip bag, PLUS a few additions.

The normal (double) recipe is:

2+1/4 C. sifted Flour
1 tsp. Baking Soda
1 tsp. Salt
1 C. Butter
3/4 C. White Sugar
3/4 C. Brown Sugar
1 tsp. Vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. Water
2 Eggs
2 ea. 6-ounce packages of chocolate chips
1 C. chopped Nuts

Cream together butter and sugars, Beat in vanilla, water, and eggs. Sift together flour, soda, and salt; blend into butter mixture. Mix in chocolate and nuts. Drop by 1/2-tsp. Bake 10 - 12 minutes at 375 degrees F. Makes about 50.

My variations/changes:
Flour: I always use unbleached, AP
Salt: Kosher (coarse)
Brown sugar: if I have any turbinado, I use that; otherwise I will sometimes increase the brown and decrease the white, so long as I still have the same total.
Vanilla: I use less if I'm using a really strong Bourbon vanilla, and adjust the water accordingly.
Eggs: I use large
Chocolate: never, never use cheap stuff (e.g., Nestles)! Better to chop up some good stuff, or at least use the best chips you can get.
Nuts: either walnuts or pecans when I use them, but I don't always; sometimes I will add flaked coconut instead. OR I will beat in a 7-ounce roll of almond paste with the vanilla etc. (Leave a little chunky).
Another variation: sometimes add some instant coffee powder (espresso or regular, decaf or high-test) also at the beating in vanilla stage. With the coffee, sometimes a little cinnamon, too.

I NEVER make them that small, either. So the baking time has to be adjusted.

NOW: what to drink with? What, are you crazy? A BIG GLASS OF MILK, WHAT ELSE????? Nobody is a grownup when they eat these, no matter how fancy the cookie is!

[brreynolds]

Like Suzanne, I use the recipe on the chocolate chips for normal chocolate chip cookies. I use black walnuts, since they go well with chocolate stuff.

For occasions when I need to mainline chocolate, here's recipe I found a while ago that produces a Texas-sized cookie:

Double Chocolate Chunk Cookies
(All measurements are US-style)

1 lb. semi sweet chocolate, divided into two equal parts (or use 1/2 lb. chocolate and 1/2 lb. chocolate chips)
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup butter
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
2 cups chopped nuts

Coarsely chop 1/2 of the chocolate and set aside for later addition to dough. Melt the remaining 1/2 of the chocolate, and stir in the butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla. Then stir in baking powder and flour, followed by nuts and chopped chocolate.

Drop onto ungreased cookie sheet by 1/4 cupfuls. Bake at 350 degrees (F.) for 12 -13 minutes or until puffed and just barely set to the touch. Cool on cookie sheet for a minute before transferring to a wire rack to cool.

I make this in 1/2 batches, and the dough keeps reasonably well for several days. As I said, black walnuts go particularly well in these.

And being a traditionalist, I view the only proper beverage to have with cookies as being milk.

[Rachel]

Thank you for the recipes. I understand the need to maintain traditions, it is one of my favourite rants. However if i get some friends round for a chocolate chip cookie tasting sesion and offer them glasses of milk, I am likely to be wearing the milk. So can anyone help to break with tradition but still paying my respects to it? i could even do chocolate chip cookies and xxx drink in the style of milk

[panini]

bite size choco. chip cookies and Bailey's puffs. Shot of baileys in a old fashioned glass, a pinch of club soda. Put your coaster on top of the glass, give it a pound on the table and shoot. Follow with a mini ch.chip cookie.

[Peachcreek]

My recipe is the same as Suzannes' except I use no nuts and I use hand-chunked Callebaut Semi-sweet chocolate. Having the butter at the right temperature seems to me to be the key to picture-perfect cookies.

[marmalady]

Chocolate chip oatmeal cookies - just use a good oatmeal/cinnamon/raisin recipe, leave out the raisins and cinnamon, and add chocolate chips or chunks, and nuts if you like. BTW, this is my rationale for making 'healthy' CC cookies!

[monpetitchoux]

The only chocolate chip cookie I bake and eat:

Cream together:
8 oz (228 g) unsalted butter, room temp.
4.75 oz (135 g) granulated sugar
4.75 oz (135 g) light brown sugar

Beat in:
1 large egg (about 50 g)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Sift together:
8.75 oz (250 g) ap flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

Stop the mixer and stir in by hand
the dry ingredients you previously sifted, then the following:
1/2 pound chocolate (you can use what you've got)
2 oz (57 g) rolled oats
3 oz (85 g) sweetened shredded coconut
2 oz (57 g) pecans, toasted, chopped lightly

Bake at 375 F or 191 C about 12 minutes or until cookies are golden (depends on the size you make them). Rest 1 minute on sheets before transferring to rack.

I like a cup of tea with my cookies. But if you must drink, do a nice port for the chocolate. I hope you'll be able to find the pecans. I know they're really an American nut.

[CompassRose]

Ahh... now I'd do white chocolate and macadamia cookies, with is it Brown Cows? Kahlua and milk.

Perhaps a selection.

Ooo, and brreynolds' mainline choco cookies would be very very nice with Amaretto.

Or how about Irish (or similarly loaded) coffees, and dip the cookies?

That's some sugar rush, though. Let me think. I've had Guinness Floats, a fudge brownie at the bottom of a glass of Guinness, with ice cream on top. Actually, yes, a dark dark brew might not be bad with the classic choco-chip!

[brreynolds]

Rachel earlier wrote: "However if i get some friends round for a chocolate chip cookie tasting sesion and offer them glasses of milk, I am likely to be wearing the milk." This is of course because you're all furriners, and have no appreciation for proper cookie traditions. Coffee, tea and various strong beverages are all fine before or after cookies, but no civilized person drinks them with cookies.

Well, if you must be one of the Huns, I would suggest either of two routes: one would be a sweet wine (sauternes, muscat, etc. Cookies are a dessert after all. The other one would be to second CompassRose's suggestion -- aside from that Guinness and brownie combo -- and go with a coffee-based drink (Irish, bourbon, etc.), something with one of the cream-style liqueurs in it, or another bourbon based drink.

Drinks that are on the sweet side rather than sweet-sour would probably combine best with cookies, which tend to be very high in sugar. (While Scottish whisky is my own drink of choice, I've never found peat and cookies to be complementary flavors. Sherry and cookies do ok together, but I haven't been real impressed with port and cookies, and I can't even get my mind around beer and cookies as a combination.)

[Rachel]

Originally posted by brreynolds

(While Scottish whisky is my own drink of choice, I've never found peat and cookies to be complementary flavors. Sherry and cookies do ok together, but I haven't been real impressed with port and cookies, and I can't even get my mind around beer and cookies as a combination.)

HA!! So you admit you've tried!!

[brreynolds]

I said I was a traditionalist, not closed-minded. What good is a tradition if it can't hold its own against new ideas?

[nancya]

cookies cookies cookies cookies.........

oh, man..........I want some cookies

[Peachcreek]

Try drinking a highland with your cookies. Glenmorangie isn't real peaty. I think some field testing is in order. I'll get back to you.

[Athenaeus]

Chocolate chip cookies with whiskey?
After how many whiskeys?

Call the whiskey police, NOW!!!!