Foodle: Can't Please Everybody...Or Can I?!?

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I’ve been working on this recipe since I had my own little cookie business 7 years ago called Everything’s Sweeter. I used to sell chocolate chip the most, then sugar, followed by double chocolate chip, espresso, and peanut butter. Everywhere I went I brought cookies: homeroom, a friend’s house, holiday gifts. People would ask for the recipe and I would give everything out but the chocolate chip. The only person who got it was my mother, when I went away to culinary school, so she could have them whenever she wanted.

One of my first labs at Johnson and Wales University was baking science where we learned about every kind of ingredient in pastry and how it worked at a molecular level. We used our professor, Paula Figoni’s book, How Baking Works, I highly recommend it! In this class, I learned that baking soda was the leavening agent that makes baked goods spread (also contributes to brown color in chocolate cake), and baking powder makes baked goods rise. This is fundamentally why cookies are primarily leavened by baking soda and cakes are primarily leavened by baking powder. I wanted my cookies to be flat of course, and tender, but could a slight amount of baking powder give them just the right amount of fluff factor?

I took my cookie recipe back to the drawing board and adjusted the amounts of leavening agents until it was perfect. I must have made these cookies so many times the recipe was cemented in my brain. Unfortunately, in between hundreds of recipes and formulas, baking boatloads at culinary school, I made one little mix up. Sometimes I forget that its ½ tsp each of salt, baking soda, and baking powder and I put in 1 tsp of each. Well the good news: I found the right recipe on three little neon pink post-its and after a few trial runs, I can be sure this is the best chocolate chip cookie recipe I’ve made and the weight conversions are completely accurate. Enjoy!!

Yield: 3 dozen cookies

Tools: stationary with paddle attachment or hand mixer, rubber scraper, small whisk, cookie sheets, cookie scoop, measuring cups, spoons, and bowls

Ingredients:

2 sticks	227 grams	Unsalted Butter
½ cup	100 grams	Granulated Sugar
1 cup	180 grams	Brown Sugar
2 tsp.	6 grams	Vanilla Extract
2 each	100 grams	Eggs
2 ¼ cup	284 grams	All Purpose Flour
½ tsp.	4 grams	Salt
½ tsp.	2 grams	Baking Soda
½ tsp.	2 grams	Baking Powder
2 cups	320 grams	Chocolate Chips

Method of Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350^oF. Measure out all ingredients.

2. Scrape butter off paper into mixing bowl. (You can use the paper to rest the rubber scraper in between scraping the bowl)

3. Mix softened butter until smooth. Add white and brown sugar.

4. Cream for 4 minutes on medium speed.

5. Add vanilla extract. Mix on medium speed 1 minute.

6. Add one egg at a time, mixing for 1 minute on medium speed after each addition.

7. Scrape down the bowl again.

8. Mix the flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder together in a separate mixing bowl.

9. Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients to the dough.

10. Mix on the lowest speed for 30 seconds, there will still be flour that’s not mixed in but you do not want to over mix.

11. Add the next 1/3 of the dry ingredients and mix again on the lowest speed for 30 seconds.

12. This time add the remaining dry’s and the chocolate chips.

13. Mix on the lowest speed until everything is just combined, about 1 minute.

14. Scoop onto ungreased cookie sheet about 2 tbsp or dough and at least 1 ½” apart.

15. Bake at 350^oF for 5 to 10 minutes until the edges just begin to brown.

Wingin It Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

So as I am mid-preparation of my chocolate chip cookies, my dad walks by and asks me what I’m making. He makes a request that I make something different, something chocolate and peanut butter (his favorite combo). I told him I already started something else but he would have it! Can’t please everybody…or can I?!? Below is my easy fix when you have a picky crowd and only enough eggs for one batch of dough!