I baked and it didn't suck.

I am not a baker.  I love love love to cook but I just cannot get into baking.  I’ve told people I just don’t like how calculated everything is with baking.  That, unlike cooking, which is more akin to art, baking is architecture and one wrong move and the whole building comes crashing down.  It just doesn’t allow for the same sort of free flowing artistic expression.

Truth is, I’m just not good at it.

I can relate to this all too well.

But regardless, every once in a while the craving to bake kicks in.  I find some delicious looking recipe online that compels me to dust off my little hand mixer I got with my Westlaw points my 3L year.  I like the idea of me baking.  Making desserts with my future rugrats, filling the house with delicious baked good aromas, being the ENVY OF ALL THE PARENTS.  But I don’t particularly like doing it and the end product is often… disappointing.

Like last week when I came across a recipe for “The Chewiest Chocolate Chip Cookies” from Andie at a lovely blog I follow called Can You Stay for Dinner?…I just had to try it.

Starts off painless enough: mixing dry ingredients up.

R and I are both not big sweets fans, but baking cookies seems so very Christmas and I wanted to keep the Christmas feeling going after trimming the tree and decorating.

Look, Ma! I'm doing it: Mixing up dry into wet ingredients, slowly.

Andie’s recipe is fairly easy and doesn’t require any complicated steps or hard to find ingredients.

Mmm... chocolate chips and cookie dough.

A couple of her secrets to perfect chewy cookies are to use melted butter, use mostly brown sugar, and to refrigerate the cookie dough for up to 48 hours.  I did for about 3.

Totally looking like real cookies.

Sadly, the timer I set on my Blackberry Playbook was too quiet and I forgot about them.  Instead of Andie’s chewy, moist, chocolate chip nirvana, I made a rock-hard, burnt, inedible mess.  I had to throw them all out.

I was about to hang up my baking apron for good, but I was inspired yesterday to try one more time.  I was meeting a friend for dinner and wanted to give him some cookies for Christmas.

I followed all of the steps religiously and stayed in the kitchen for the entire 15 minutes.  The final result?

Delicious chewy moist cookies that are absolutely gift-worthy!  R just tried one and gave his approval.

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes 12 large cookies.  I halved the recipe from What’s For Dinner?.

Here’s what you need:  

• 1 C all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 6 T unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
• 1/2 C brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 C semi sweet chocolate chips (1/2 of a 12 oz bag)

Here’s what you do: 

• Melt the butter in a saucepan on the stove over low heat.  Let cool slightly (about 4-5 minutes).
• In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt.
• In a large mixing bowl, beat the melted butter and sugars until well combined (about 2 minutes).
• Add the eggs and vanilla to the butter-sugar mixture for 1 minute.
• Gradually beat in the flour mixture on low speed.  Do not overbeat or you’ll get bready cookies.
• Mix in chocolate chips.
• Cover and refrigerate dough for up to 48 hours.  The longer the chewier.  I did 3 hours.  Apparently, even 3o min is worth it.
• Preheat oven to 350 F.
• Roll dough into 12 even sized balls (golf ball sized) and space evenly on cookie sheet.  Flatten each a bit for even baking.
• Bake for 15 min.
• I baked them for 12 minutes, turned the oven off, and then put them back in for another 3 minutes.  This is not some secret baking trick.  I was just overly paranoid about burning them again so I took them out too early thinking maybe because I halved the recipe that it might require less time.  I had already turned off the oven at this point so I just stuck them back in.  It seemed to work out.
• Let cookies cool on the sheet for 1 minute on the sheet before removing them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Be sure to head over to What’s For Dinner?, a far more competent baker with much better pictures, for the full instructions and all her secrets to perfect cookies.

Happy baking!

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