Martha's Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies

look at this. I mean look at it. I DARE you not to make this ;)

I have no idea how this past week has come and gone. I promised myself I would update at least another 2 times during the week, but alas, it is Sunday again. I’ve been so very busy this week running around town going to interviews. I have been quite the mess! I would wake in the morning at the early wee hours (in my case 9 am…the insanity!) and get dressed in my most dressed up blazer and pants I own and run out the door in my heels, always managing to leave a lot later than I anticipated! I now have a pair of feet covered in painful blisters from all that running around in all those heels. *cries*

Perhaps I should back up a little first and explain that I am enrolled in my degree’s coop program. For those of you who don’t know, coop is basically a structured to fit into your program student work program. For example, in first semester of this year I took a course in coop, then a bunch of jobs are posted for us to apply to from different ministries and NGO’s etc, and we apply and get paying jobs in our field, while still studying. This is a perfect opportunity no?!

But of course, this is Zahra’s life we are talking about. And nothing is that easy. The year that I got into coop (this year) the fee has jumped about 10x the original! As well, due to the rough economic times….there has been a decrease in jobs available for students (one coop advisor told me more than half of usual employers aren’t employing!). Thus, I have had no interviews all semester (I’ve been applying since January) and was quite depressed at the fact that I would lose all the money I paid and still be unemployed.

However, this week had turned up more positive, I suddenly had interviews right after another! But unfortunately, it seems that they wont amount to any jobs! :( Anywho, I thought I should just update you guys on why I have been gone and whats going on with me.

Now, what always helps with the unemployment blues are these soft chocolate chip cookies – that is if you end up with cookies at all! (the dough is very yummy) What I particularly enjoyed about these cookies was how soft and cakey they were. I’m used to eating crunchier ones, and these were absolutely delicious! I will definitely be making more of this!

Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies

(via Martha Stewart)

Ingredients

Makes about 2 dozen

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 7 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 1 large egg, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 3 tablespoons sour cream ( I used yogurt)
  
• 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips ( I only used 1 cup of semisweet chips and I found it was more than enough)
  
• 3/4 cup milk-chocolate chips
  

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350. Whisk together flour, salt, and baking soda. Beat butter and sugars with a mixer on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes. Beat in egg and vanilla. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in 2 batches, alternating with sour cream, and beat until just combined. Stir in chocolate chips by hand. Cover, and freeze for 10 minutes.
2. Using a 1 1/2-inch ice cream scoop or a tablespoon, drop dough onto baking sheets lined with parchment, spacing about 2 inches apart. Flatten slightly. Bake until centers are set and cookies are pale golden brown, 12 to 14 minutes.
   
   

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The Chocolate Chip Cookie Story

Idont think ANYONE can question chocolate chip cookies. Those yummy little cookies with their buttery taste, and the gooey chocolate chips as they melt in your hands ... fresh out of the oven... *sigh*

A few days ago it was Family Day here in Ontario, the first one we have ever had actually, and my younger brother was going to be home for the day. My mom decided to invite some of his friends over so they can hang out for a day, and their moms can take a break (They take turns handling a group of 13-14 year old boys who seem to ALWAYS be on a sugar high ...without any sugar...!)

So, my mom asked me to make something yummy but simple for the kids to eat up... I was thinking layered cakes and mousses....my mom was thinking simple cookies....lol

SO ...I decided to make Chocolate Chip cookies, and used my FAV recipe! :) (the original recipe of course!

I also thought it would be the perfect opportunity for using my new Wilton pans! and OMG I am in LOVE with these things man! the PURRRFECT PAN!

But anywho....back to the story at hand ;) So where DID these delicious cookies come from? Well there are two conflicting stories....but they both begin with the Toll House Inn.

Heres the official Nestle version:

Mrs. Wakefield was making chocolate cookies but ran out of regular baker's chocolate, so she substituted it with broken pieces of semi-sweet chocolate from Andrew Nestlé, thinking that it would melt and mix into the batter. It clearly did not, and the chocolate chip cookie was born. Wakefield sold the recipe to Nestlé in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate chips. Every bag of Nestlé chocolate chips in North America has a variation of her original recipe printed on the back (butter and margarine are now both included as variants). During WWII, GIs from Massachusetts who were stationed overseas shared the cookies they received in care packages from back home with soldiers from other parts of the U.S. Soon, hundreds of GIs were writing home asking their families to send them some Toll House Cookies, and Mrs. Wakefield was soon inundated with letters from around the country asking for her recipe. Thus, began the nation-wide craze for the chocolate chip cookie.

And here's the conflicting story:

Mrs. Carol Cavanagh, of Brockton, Massachusetts and a former employee of the Inn, and her father, George Boucher of South Dennis, MA and the former head chef at the Toll House Inn during the years of its operation, offer a different history of the cookie. Contradicting Nestlé's claim that Mrs. Wakefield put chunks of chocolate into cookie dough hoping they would melt, Mrs. Cavanagh states that Mrs. Wakefield was already an accomplished chef and author of a cookbook, and knew enough about the properties of chocolate that it would not melt and mix into the batter while baking. Mr. Boucher states that Mrs. Wakefield was known for her sugar cookies, which came free with every meal, and were for sale in the inn's lobby. One day, while mixing a batch of the sugar cookie dough, the vibrations from a large Hobart electric mixer caused bars of Nestlé's chocolate stored on the shelf above the mixer to fall into the mixing bowl, where it was broken up and incorporated into the dough. Mrs. Wakefield believed the dough was ruined and was about to discard it, when Mr. Boucher stopped her and talked her into saving the batch. His reasoning was out of frugality rather than a prediction of the cookie's future popularity. Mrs. Cavanagh states that Mrs. Wakefield did not sell the ownership of the recipe to Nestlé, but she only gave them rights to print her recipe on the packages of their chocolate morsels. Later, Nestlé's lawyers found loopholes in the initial agreement that ceded the rights to the recipe from Mrs. Wakefield, and began mass-producing the cookies.



Who would have thought that innocent little chocolate chip cookies could have SO much scandal?! ;) Which ever story is true, what really matters, is that it happened...and the chocolatey goodness was invented!

Now after all that reading, you're prob quite ready for that recipe huh? ;)

Original NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Chocolate Chip Cookies

Estimated Times: Preparation - 15 min | Cooking - 9 min | Cooling Time - 15 min cooling | Yields - 60

Ingredients:
* 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
* 3/4 cup granulated sugar
* 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 2 large eggs
* 2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels **
* 1 cup chopped nuts

Directions: PREHEAT oven to 375° F. COMBINE flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy.

Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts.

Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets. BAKE for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

** I personally tend to use MUCH less chocolate chips....and I still find that I have at least 5-7 chocolate chips in each...but that's all about personal preference. :)

Heres a step by step pic of it ;)

The OH SO YUMMY Cookie dough....if you asked me if I ate some of it raw....I would lie and say no. :)



So Go on...make some chocolate chip cookies...and you can say..."THAT'S RIGHT...that's how the cookie is SUPPOSED to taste like " ;)

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