The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

Truly, these cookies are absolutely delicious-chewy, soft middle, with slightly crunchy outsides. 

They even won a cookie tasting competition (well, tied for first) when my friend Tara hosted a cookie tasting birthday for her husband Matt.

Note: I know you all know what sugar, flour, eggs, etc. look like, so I didn't go all food blogger on you, but there's a yummy picture at the end!

2 c. minus 2 tbsp cake flour (ok, this might be a lesser known ingredient, so here's a picture)

1 and 2/3 c. bread flour

1 and 1/4 tsp baking soda

1 and 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 and 1/2 tsp coarse salt

2 and 1/2 sticks unsalted butter

1 and 1/4 c. Light brown sugar

1 c. Plus 2 tbsp sugar

2 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla 

1 and 1/4 lbs 60% cacao disks (

Stir flours, baking soda, powder and salt in a bowl. 

Using a mixer with a paddle, cream butter and sugars together until very light (about five minutes). Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

Stir in vanilla.

Add dry ingredients and mix on low until just combined.

Incorporate chocolate pieces.

Press plastic wrap (Keri's note: or Press n Seal!) against dough and refrigerate for 24-36 hours.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Drop six golf ball sized mounds of dough onto the cookie sheet and sprinkle lightly with sea salt. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes until golden brown but still soft. Cool cookie sheet on a cooling rack for ten minutes, then cool cookies on the rack for ten more minutes. Enjoy!

Safe (Eggless) Cookie Dough

My picture of the egg aisle in a Paris grocery.

My pregnancy diet and my non-pregnancy diet are not much different.  I don't regularly eat many of the things "they" tell pregnant women not to eat - with one exception - raw eggs in cookie dough.  I love cookie dough so much more than the actual cookies themselves, but the raw eggs scare me enough to make me not eat cookie dough while pregnant.  I know that people have differing view points on raw eggs.  When we were honeymooning in Paris, they kept the eggs in the regular food aisles - not refrigerated at all!  It's my understanding that it's because their eggs go onto the shelves fresher than in America.  Anyway, it's not a risk I'm taking just to eat some cookie dough, so I made the cookie dough egg free!  These are also good if you want some cookie taste without turning on the oven on a hot day!

Eggless Cookie Dough Recipe 

(Note:  these are not for baking - just for eating refrigerated)

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
• Heaping 1/3 cup sugar (I just don't level the measuring cup)
• Heaping 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 1/8 cup flour (I just fill 1/2 of a 1/4c. with flour)
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt (slightly less if you use salted butter)
• 1 c. chocolate chips
• 2 TBSP milk

 Cream butter, sugar, and vanilla.  I cream them for a long time.

 Add the flour, salt, and baking powder.  The baking powder isn't really necessary because the cookie dough doesn't need any help rising, but for taste purposes, I add it in.  Blend it all together. 

Add the 2 tablespoons milk.  You might need to add slightly less or more, depending on your location.  Two usually works for me!

 When the dough is a good consistency, add the chocolate chips.

 Mix it all together!

 Place spoonfuls on a cookie sheet and refrigerate or freeze. 

Enjoy! 

Now, I might have to go make some more! 

Supper

My idea of supper is one that is cooked for me when I get home. Teaching is one tiring profession and making supper at the end of a long day is not my idea of relaxing. Thus, my new favorite friend is the slow cooker. Tonight's supper is roast with carrots and potatoes and some bread on the side. Don't you want to just swan dive into that loaf of bread? It's from a local bakery and the first day you get the bread, the outside is crunchy crunchy and the inside is soooooooft. (Seize the moment, because it levels off quickly!)

Here is the roast recipe:

*3-4 lb beef chuck roast

*4 potatoes (we use 6-8 small red bliss and quarter them)

*carrots (we use baby carrots for convenience)

*1 medium onion sliced into wedges

*1/2 cup of plum jam or preserves

*1/3 cup of marsala cooking wine

*1/2 cup of water

* 2tsp. basil

*1 tsp. garlic salt

*1/2 tsp. black pepper

The recipe calls for parsnip too, but I don't remember how much. Parsnip is not on my list of things I'd like to eat in a roast.

Cut the potatoes, carrots and onion and place them in the bottom of the slow cooker.

Mix the plum jam, cooking wine, water, basil, garlic, and black pepper together.

Place roast on top of the vegetables and pour the mixture over the roast.

Cook for 11-12 hours on low or 5-6 hours on high.

When it is finished, mix 3 TBsp of water and 3 TBsp of corn starch together in a pan. Skim the fat off the juices in the slow cooker and pour the juices into the pan. Heat several minutes until the gravy is thickened.

Enjoy!