Chocolate Chip Cookies

Hellooooooooooooo,

The Doctor and I were in the mood to do some baking last night...really I just needed some chocolate in the house...let's be honest here!

A while back we found this AH-mazing chocolate chip recipe in our "Betty Crocker's New Cookbook - Everything you need to know to cook" and we use it all the time.

Prep time: 10 minutes

Bake time: 40 minutes

Makes about 4 dozen cookies

*We made 2 batches this time. Yup that's right, we had 8 dozen cookies in our house! Dr. Bob decided to bring some in to the office as a way to meet people since he is the new guy in town so now we only have about 5 and 1/2 dozen left. They are all packed away nice so I won't be "housing" them all today. We'll get into that later.

Alright, let's get on with it.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1 cup stick margarine or butter

1 large egg

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup coarsely chopped nuts (we always omit these)

1 package (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips (2 cups)

Ignore the vanilla extract, we thought it was in the recipe so it was included in the photo but it's not.

Heat oven to 375 degrees.

Mix sugars, margarine and egg in large bowl.

Note - you can have the butter soften naturally by leaving it out on the counter for a while before you make the cookies or you can use the microwave. If you use the microwave, make sure to set it to 50% power for about 25 seconds. You may then have to turn the sticks of butter over and do 10 more seconds. I accidentally did it on full power for the 25 seconds and it turned out okay but 50% is preferred.

We use a hand held mixer as that is all we currently have and it works just fine.

Hint for immediate family - this year's Christmas present = gift cards to Bed, Bath and Beyond so we can purchase a KitchenAid.

Stir in flour, baking soda and salt (dough will be stiff).

Stir in nuts and chocolate chips.

Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake 8 - 10 minutes or until light brown (centers will be soft). Cool slightly (usually about a minute or 2) on pan after being removed from oven. Remove from cookie sheet. Cool on wire rack.

Super simple!!

Now I told you we did a double batch and you probably already guessed the little switch-a-roo from the ingredient picture...but the 2nd batch is where we subbed the chocolate chips for M&M's.

YUM! All other parts of the recipe were duplicated.

Here is the final product....YAY! My favorite!

Now we obviously aren't going to eat all of these cookies in one sitting, although I wish we could! So what we have done is put them in quart size ziplocks in teams of a dozen and stored them in the freezer. Feel free to take out 1 or 2 for a snack, which I do all the time, or wait until you have guests over and you have a ready made snack/dessert. They will just need to sit out for a bit in order to defrost and not kill your teeth when biting in to these little bits of heaven.

Nutritional Facts - 1 cookie:

Calories 135 (Calories from Fat 70); Fat 8g (Saturated 2g); Cholesterol 5mg; Sodium 100mg; Carbohydrate 16g (Dietary Fiber 1g); Protein 1g.

If you want to make them a little lighter for you, Betty has the answer:

For 4 grams of fat and 90 calories per serving, decrease margarine to 3/4 cup, add 1 teaspoon vanilla with the egg and omit the nuts. Substitute 1 cup of miniature chocolate chips for the 12 oz package of chocolate chips.

Well I hope you all give this recipe a try...we have had rave reviews. It's not even 11am and Dr. Bob says the cookies are going like "hot cakes" at the office!

Happy Baking!

Reader Question: What's your favorite type of cookie?