Dana's Favorite Cookies

When me and my girlfriend first moved in together a few years back we were living in the most horrible little house imaginable. Everything was falling apart, the electricity was running through the shower, the ceiling in our bedroom was floating foam and non of the doors closed all the way. The mice were digging holes through the walls faster then I was closing them up.

It was important to me in contrast to this to always have sweet treats available for guests, trying to maintain some kind of a homey atmosphere. I set to finding the perfect simple chewy and soft chocolate chip cookie. After a few experiments I was happy so I started making batches of about 60 cookies each time and putting them in jars. Somehow it didn't matter how many cookies I made when people came to visit the jars were empty.

I've always been the type of person to have my cookie when the time is just right, a cup of coffee in the morning or with tea at the end of the day. One is usually enough. My wonderful girlfriend explained to me that I was not a normal human being. That most people, herself included, are always in the right mood for a cookie. As long as there are cookies, she would continue eating them. 

And so I stopped stocking them in jars and stuck to baking about 12 cookies on the spot when they were needed and still do to this day. These are perfect for that because they are so easy they can be ready to consume in 30 min tops.

The Secrets

1. Do not over work the dough, little lumps of butter do the cookies a great service while baking.

2. It's all about timing, they might look too soft when you take them out of the oven but trust that they will cool and stabilize.

What you will need (for about 30 cookies)

2 1/4  Cups of Flour

Tsp Baking Powder

1 Cup Of Sugar

1/2 Cup of Brown Sugar

Pinch of Salt

2 Large Eggs

1 Cup of Cold Butter cut into small squares

Tsp of Vanilla Ext.

200 g/0.44 Lb Dark Chocolate

What To Do

1. Excluding the chocolate, put everything else in a large bowl and start working it with you hands making sure to mush the butter in. Work it until you have a consistent cookie dough but don't worry about little lumps here and there, leave them.

2. You can use chocolate chips but the bigger the chunks are, the better the cookie. I like to take the chocolate in the wrapper, bang it against the counter or bang it with a rolling pin, and then unwrap it. Go ahead and throw those into the dough and work it just enough so the chocolate is distributed evenly. 

3. Roll ping pong ball sized dough balls between your hands and put them on an oven tray on a piece of parchment paper. They need to be about 2 inches away from each other because they will flatten out a bit.

4. Bake in a preheated oven at 375 F for 11 min. They should be soft and unstable but make sure they don't still have a spot in the middle that looks a bit runny. 

5. leave them to stabilize on the tray for about 3 min and then carefully move them with a spatula to a cooling rack for 5 min more.

6. enjoy!

What Else?

These go great with white or milk chocolate as well. Mix all three and take a pic of how happy you were when you took a bite!

Let me know how it turned out and share your simple cookie story.