Chocolate Chip Cookies

I love a good simple cookie sometimes.  Chocolate chip is just that perfect cookie.  There isn't too much chocolate, just the right amount of vanilla cookie and, when fresh out of the oven, speak to my inner child.  Over the years I have toyed with a variety of cookie recipes.  Through a process of trial and error I have mished and mashed several recipes together to get the best dough and my favorite cookie.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 cup of butter softened
1/2 cup of vegetable shortening (although I usually make them with all butter.  Half shortening tends to make them a bit more chewy)
3/4 c. sugar
3/4 c. brown sugar packed
2 eggs
2 T. milk (trust me on this)
1 t. vanilla extract (if using artificial vanilla use 2 t.)
1/2 t. salt
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. baking powder
2-1/4 c. flour (although this varies anywhere from 2 cups to 2-1/2 cups depending on humidity)
1-1/2 c. mini chocolate chips (although you can use any, I like the way that mini chips spread through out the dough)

Using a mixer add all the ingredients in order, mixing well before adding the next.  You can add 1/2 - 1 cup of chopped pecans, although I seem to be the only one in the house that likes nuts in my cookies, so I rarely get to have them.)  When the dough is thoroughly mixed, using a spoon.  Eat it.  OK, don't.  OK, do.  OK, technically you aren't supposed to eat cookie dough that has raw eggs in it, but in all my forty-something years of eating cookie dough I have never had a bad reaction.  And cookie dough is just so yummy.  But if you insist on baking cookies (which you really should because if you ate that much cookie dough you will get a tummy ache and it won't be because of raw eggs) heat your oven to 350°F and bake them on a baking stone for 12-14 minutes.  If you don't have a baking stone, then I recommend using parchment paper on a metal sheet.  It won't be as good as on a stone, but it will make clean up easier and you don't have to worry about your cookies sticking to your pan.  After they have baked eat them as fast as you can.  Have a glass of ice cold milk with them or a cup of tea.  It's best that way.

Some of my favorite things

Unfortunately in the wonderful Richard Rodgers' song, it fails to mention anything about cookie baking day. I love a cookie baking day. Today is one of those days. I'm making several different varieties for a cookie exchange with my knitting group and since I couldn't decide which cookie I wanted to bake I'm making a sampling from some of my favorites. From very easy (butter, sugar, flavoring (I used orange) and flour) to more intensive time consuming ones that require one to actually decorate and paint the finished cookies. But it's one of my favorite things to do, so I don't look at it as work.

My first recipe called for me to roll the cookies in powdered sugar. This meant I had to get down my sugar rolling bowl. This is a pottery bowl that my mother made probably thirty years ago. I've retained ownership of it and its twin and when cookies need to be rolled this is the bowl that comes down. It doesn't matter if it is powdered sugar for mocha crinkles or cinnamon and sugar for snickerdoodles. It's all the same. This is the perfect rolling bowl. It isn't too deep, it isn't too wide and it isn't too large. It allows for perfect hand movements and is large enough to hold three or four little balls of dough without crowding each other. It is one of those warm and comforting objects that is ingrained in traditions. I am quite sure as my children move out of the house there will inspections made to make sure that this bowl doesn't leave with them. They will fight over who gets it at my death. And if, by some horrid chance, it breaks we will have a service to remember all the wonderful times we had rolling cookies in sugar in this bowl.

Knitting is not for the lazy

Well, not if you want to get anything done. There are fourteen knitting days left until Christmas (in case you didn't know). And I have a total of one project done out of four. Two I have to work on covertly because people keep hanging around or want to "spend time with me" which really puts a cramp on my being able to knit without them knowing what I am making. So all of this is going on and then I find out this week that several friends have had tragedies or bad news in their lives. That equates to charity knitting. Blankets and shawls and demise caps. But you know? I don't really mind. I may have to give a few gifts to family members that are still on the needles, but I think they will understand.

There is something about knitting an item for a friend who has lost a baby or a loved one. As you knit each stitch you think about what they are going through and how their lives are impacted by tragedy and you hope that each time that they wrap themselves in this thing you have made that they will feel loved and supported. For a friend whose grandbaby died our knitting group is making demise caps and blankets for the hospital that has tended to this family. Somehow you hope that the families that have to use these items will feel some comfort knowing that someone took the time to create a hat for their baby.

So in all this I am busy plugging away. I'm editing, so there isn't a whole lot of actual writing going on and because it is December and it is actually cold outside I have been baking cookies. The house smells all warm and good and it is easy to switch batches in the oven between rows of knitting and lines of editing. But there just doesn't seem time to do much of anything else. Maybe January will be easier.