On the Baking of Cookies

[S]

So with it being the Holidays, Saturnalia and Thanksgiving and the Solstice and New Year's and possibly Twelfth Night (by Billy Shakes), a few naked goods recipes might be in order. I have five cookie recipes that are worth a damn; these two were taken almost right off the package. But first some backstory.

A decade ago I was living in a... it's too complicated to describe but I had solo access several days a week to a kitchen suitable for cooking for 300.

I decided to settle the question of whose chocolate chips were best once and for all. I went to the grocery store and bought one of every kind of chip they had, and produced cookies according to package directions. If you knew me that year you got cookies as a gift.

They stopped producing the winner within a year: Ghirardelli Double Chocolate Chips are no more. Introduced a replacement product with similar packaging, and that's the first cookie now.

Fair warning, I live in America, and these are the units as I was given them.

60% Cacao Chip cookies by Ghirardelli

Sift together 2 1/4 cups of flour, 1 tsp baking powder, and 1/2 tsp of salt. Set aside.

Cream together 2 sticks of butter, and 3/4 of a cup each of brown sugar and white sugar. Doing the creaming with a metal tablespoon actually makes them taste better at the end for some reason. Beat in two eggs. Add some real vanilla extract, at least two tablespoons. More is better.

Stir the dry mix into the wet mix slowly. When finished, mix in an entire bag of chips.

Drop balls onto cookie sheets and bake at 375○F until golden. They do not need greasing due to the butter content. There is enough baking powder here to make them puff up quite a bit.

The chocolate flavor here is nearly overpowering.

The next recipe is similar but: we use Ghirardelli milk chocolate chips; put in a bit more baking powder; and add 2-4 tbsp cinnamon to the dry mix. This ends up being quite balanced flavorwise. It looks like a lot of cinnamon; but 2 heaping tablespoons is about a half teaspoon short of the right amount. Properly sifted, the dry mix should have flecks of brown but mostly be the color of maple walnut ice cream.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

you should check out the other cookie thread, too.

[Doktor Howl]

you should check out the other cookie thread, too.

No.  No he shouldn't.