And you know what gives me a second extra brownie point? Baking his favourite cookies and mailing them to him! I thought long and hard what to get him for his birthday this year. But seeing as I'm living kinda far away, and seeing as my dad is the HARDEST person to gift shop for (let's just say he's not the most animated gift receiver... not like my mum...) I decided to resort to the one thing that always makes him happy. Food! But not just any food. Sure he likes it when I cook him just about anything. But there's only one thing he always asks me to make every time I come home. Chocolate Chip Cookies. So I made them. And I mailed them. And he got them. And a little birdie told me he was so excited when he got his package that he called my mum downstairs to come and see too! I'm totally patting myself on the back this year because I nailed it.
This is just my normal chocolate chip cookie recipe. I've taken recipes from about 100 sources and finally think I like mine so much it doesn't need changing anymore... Well until I find something new to do to it that is.
I baked the cookies for my dad a little bit longer than I normally do however, and I added a little bit more flour than normal too. The reason for this is because I knew they'd be traveling for at least a week via airmail, and thought making them drier would help them make the journey better. So unless you're planning on sending your cookies around the world too, just follow the recipe I have posted below. Your cookies will turn out ever so slightly crispy on the edges, chewy in the middle, and sooooo goood. I promise.
Oh! And did I mention that he's 50?! Old right?! Love you dad xo
Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 3/4 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp cornstarch
2 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter and the sugars with a spatula until everything is smoothly blended. Add the eggs, one at a time, and then the vanilla. At this stage you can mix as much as you'd like. There's no risk of "overmixing" until you add the flour.
In a fine mesh sieve, over the butter bowl, add 2 cups of flour and all of the salt, baking powder, and cornstarch. Sift these ingredients into the butter mixture and stir until almost just combined. At this point, add the chocolate (you can use any chocolate you like. chips, chunks, sometimes I use Smarties and make them rainbow cookies) and 1/2 cup more of flour. After just barely mixing it all together it's time for you to judge whether you want to add the additional 1/4 cup of flour. The dough shouldn't be sticky, but you also don't want it too dry because then the cookies won't be melty chewy, they'll be more dense and solid. I almost always add almost all of the rest of the flour. This takes practice and lots of test batch cookies to get to know what feels right... hard work eh?
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| This is what you want your cookie dough to look like |
To bake, divide the dough by heaping tablespoonful onto a parchment lined baking sheet. I make mine into discs, kinda like mini hockey pucks. This gives your cookies an almost perfectly round shape which I like. But if you don't want to shape your cookies, just drop them by the tablespoonful straight onto the prepared sheet. They'll be just as delicious, but they won't look as good as mine!
Bake them at 180C/350F for 8-10 minutes. You don't want any colour on the cookies EXCEPT for a teeny bit of golden brown around the edges. Take them out of the oven, cool in the pan for 5 minutes to set up a bit, then move them to a wire rack to finish cooling off. These are good hot out of the oven, a little bit warm off the rack, and even a week old by air mail.
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| Like my packaging? :) I should have crossed out ARNOTT'S and written CHRISTINE'S |
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