Cookies

mmm, brownies. i like an almost chewy crust with a very moist interior, so i usually go for the ones from the corners of the pan.

this cookie recipe might be my all-time favorite:

1 cup butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
2 2/3 cup flour

Cream 1 cup butter & gradually add 1 cup sugar. Add 1 unbeaten egg, 1/4
teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons Vanilla. Beat well.

Gradually blend in 2 2/3 Cups sifted flour. Chill 2 hours before rolling out.

Bake on ungreased cookie sheet at 375° F for 10 minutes.

i know it seems plain, but it produces an incredibly delicious sugar/butter cookie hybrid that's great on its own or as a base dough.

Have been going crazy w/ toll house recipe lately! Just finished off the last of the batch for brunch today. I've almost got it completely where I want it by tweaking the package recipe. Differences follow:

1. 2x the vanilla
2. cut white sugar by almost half
3. increase brown sugar by like 1/4 cup
4. use Ghirardelli dark choco chips, or half those and and half Nestle semi-sweet
5. cream sugar into butter by hand so it's chunky and you can't overmix (although it is considerable work)
6. next time I'm going to try adding a little more salt (like maybe 1.5x) because I don't like the batter to compete with the chips for sweetness

Some of my favorites are plain butter cookies with confectioner's sugar glaze - my step-mom used to make them every year for xmas. I like a nice dough to riff on. I've also been using this double-fold vanilla ( I think twice the beans are used in making the extract, and the brand I buy has a bean in the bottle as well) for extra vanilla goodness.

Laurel, what effect does leaving the butter chunkier have on the finished cookie?

my wife makes my favorite oatmeal w/choc chip substituting mashed bannana for 1/2 the butter with no decrease in flavor. I like the crispy well done ones.

omg you're all making me hungry

Jaq, I dunno? I don't have a mixer, so there was no choice! But my mother said she'd heard hand-mixing recommended, I suspect because the butter ends up in larger pieces so you get bigger air pockets when it melts, and cookes are loftier & less dense. Also maybe similar to brownies, in that the dough gets tough if overworked and you can pass that point v quickly with a power tool.

Yep, v. true w/ brownies - the recipe I use has 1 cup of sifted flour gently stirred in by hand at the end, just until the white streaks disappear. It makes sense that the butter/sugar creaming might affect the texture - I was wondering if bigger butter chunks would make things more ... oh... toffee-like somehow.

I was reading somewhere about different leavening agents, sodium bicarb vs. ammonium bicarb mostly. Apparently the ammonium bicarb is great for very thin very crisp cookies; ginger snaps were the example I think.

I've also been making a nice simple shortbread, which is just butter, sugar, vanilla, and flour. Replacing some of the wheat flour with rice flour makes an amazing difference in the texture, much more crispy-tender.

I would like a snickerdoodle, please. Do any of you deliver?

I brought 3 tollhouse for lunch and they were eaten by 9 am :/

I always bring at least 7, Jaq. I mean, one or two of those will be given away, and the rest, well...8 hours is a long time.

At our house: chocolate chip cookies, mocha snowballs, snickerdoodles, and fudge brownies are the most often made. If I want to get more complicated, I love to make cherry orange florentines or an almond cookie that has lingonberry jam and whipped cream added to it right before being served.

Loooooove the cookies.

Sara, I bought a muffin tin the other day expressly because of the TITTWIS cupcake discussion. More sweet delightful baked goods, yay!!!