The Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie

Who doesn't love chocolate chip cookies? It may not be something that brings back childhood memories (because our mothers didn't bake chocolate chip cookies then) but it does give you warm fuzzy feeling when you have one or a bag full.

My biggest problem was that I never really had a good recipe which didn't need tweaking, or so I thought. I always ended up having to add more of something especially when the first time round the cookies were to flat or too thin.

Cookies tend to be nice big saucer like and this is so unMalaysian. We like lots of coconut milk in our nasi lemak and condensed milk in our Milo or teh tarik, but we can't stand big saucer like cookies. We like them cute and the size just nice to pop in the mouth without biting.

Recently I decided to scour through the many baking books I own to see the difference between one recipe to the other and also whether there were any tips missing in my technique that made my cookie most of the time delicious but flat like a board.

To my surprise! Most of the cookbooks have something same or similar! There may be variations in type of fat used or amount of chocolate chips added in or the optional desire to add other ingredients of nuts or fruits. The bottom line the recipes are basically the same.

A couple of tips that I discovered from the research was that the type of fat and the refrigeration of the dough effects the spread and flavour. Using half butter and half good quality vegetable shortening helps the retard spread and still ensures buttery taste. While keeping the dough an hour to 36 hours in the fridge also helps minimise spread and enhances the flavour. There was a test done in one of the books that claims the cookies baked from the 36 hours dough won hands down.

So here is the recipe:

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1/2 cup vegetable shortening ( I use Crisco)

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

2 cups of chocolate chips

1. Sift the flour with baking soda. Add the salt and whisk.

2. Cream the butter and shortening with the sugar until creamy and light (4 minutes or so). Do not over cream, remember you are not making cake!. Add eggs, one at a time and mix one minute each and add the vanilla essence.

3. Combine the dry ingredients in two parts and then add the chocolate chips. Fold.

4. Cover with cling film and refrigerate for an hour or up to 36 hours. You can form it into logs to ease cutting and baking or like me I use a small scoop to shape before baking. You can pre shape the cookies and keep in the freezer for up to a month. Make sure it is tightly wrapped. You can bake it straight out of the freezer but you may need a couple of minutes longer in the oven.

5. When ready to bake, preheat oven 175C, cut or scoop dough onto a baking tray. You can use baking paper as a liner. Bake for 15-18 minutes depending on size. Rotate tray halfway to ensure even baking.

6. Leave on pan for 5 -10 minutes before removing from tray and let cool before eating. Keep in an airtight container.

Note: You can of course add nuts if you like, preferably coarsely chopped otherwise it will add to the density of the dough. In Bakewise by Shirley O. Corriher, she added 3 cups roasted, salted and chopped pecans in her recipe. I can't wait to try those, just have to wait until the current batch of cookies are depleted and get some pecans from the shop.

Bon Appetit!