Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Baking (soda) Cookies

After two evenings of craving chocolate chip cookies, MD tried to take on the task himself. After he got our mixer out at 9 p.m., I realized he was serious about making cookies and I sort of took over from there. He didn’t mind much. However, I must give him credit for finding this recipe. My, oh, my.  It’s a keeper, my friends.

The problem: we didn’t have the semi-sweet chocolate chips the recipe called for. We dug a little in our pantry and found one bag of white chocolate chips and a bag of M&M’s about a quarter of the way full. His response, “Eh. That'll do.”

We mixed, measured, stirred and spilled. Then we got to a step in the recipe that I’d never seen in any other recipe. “Dissolve baking soda in hot water.”  Hmm. Well, okay.

We did that and went on with the recipe as usual. After the first batch came out, I quickly realized this whole “dissolve then add” situation was for a mighty fine reason.

They were amazing! Evidently, more than just magic happens when you dissolve the baking soda in hot water before adding to your batter mixture. Something about premature release of carbon dioxide and that it will incorporate into your batter better, it might activate your baking soda quicker. Yeah, yeah. I’m only concerned with the magic it did to these cookies.




Disclaimer: They were okay; only because they really needed to be made with semi-sweet chocolate chips. The cookie dough was already sweet enough before white chocolate came to the party.

My point is: Make these. This is the chocolate chip cookie recipe you’ve been searching for. You’re welcome.

Ingredients
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons hot water
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
Cream together the butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Dissolve baking soda in hot water. Add to batter along with salt. Stir in flour and chocolate chips. Drop by large spoonfuls onto a greased baking sheet.

Bake for about 10 minutes, or until edges are nicely browned. 


Serve with milk!





Recipe adapted from http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/best-chocolate-chip-cookies/detail.aspx                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

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