Chocolate Chip Cookies
Who can resist the sight of those chocolate chip cookies? It’s no wonder that the American version of Santa insists on a glass of milk and a plate full of warm cookies. While I haven’t offered the cookies to Santa for tribute yet, everyone else who has tried the cookies can’t get enough of them.
The cookie dough is based on a fluffy beaten mixture of butter and sugar. When baking with butter, it’s always important that it’s room warm, otherwise it’s sheer impossible to whip it properly with a hand mixer. So take the butter out of the fridge a few hours beforehand. As sugar we use both brown sugar and classic white sugar. Both types have different effects on the dough: more brown sugar makes the cookies softer and “chewier”, while more white sugar makes the cookies crispier. I chose the ratio so that the cookies brought the best of both worlds.
A general note on baking: Unlike cooking, you need exact amounts of each ingredient to make the recipe work. Therefore, I recommend a kitchen scale if you want to bake with some regularity. That way you can also be sure that your recipes will succeed.
But back to the cookies, where we now briefly stir in the eggs one by one. Then sift all the dry ingredients into the bowl and mix by hand with a wooden spoon. Please don’t skip the sifting, as the recipe uses cornstarch and it always clumps a lot. You don’t want any starch lumps in your cookies.
Finally, fold in the chocolate chips. As a contrast to the sweet cookie, I always choose the plain version. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rest in the fridge for at least half an hour. This has several reasons: One is that it intensifies the flavor of the cookies. The other advantage is that the butter becomes firm again and it is easier to divide the dough into individual cookies.
After the resting time, use a spoon to cut an amount of dough the size of a miniature golf ball. If you want larger cookies, you need to extend the baking time accordingly. Please also leave enough space between the cookies, as they will get very wide in the oven. Otherwise, you’ll end up with a giant cookie!
This amount of dough is enough for two baking sheets. Since the oven is set to top/bottom heat, I recommend baking the trays one after the other. After a short time the whole kitchen smells heavenly and you can enjoy these wonderful chocolate chip cookies.
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 200 g butter room temperature
- 130 g brown sugar
- 30 g white sugar
- dash vanilla extract
- 2 eggs
- 200 g flour
- 50 g cornstarch
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 100 g dark chocolate chips
Instructions
- Cream butter with both sugars and vanilla. Stir in eggs one at a time.
- Sift flour, cornstarch and baking powder into the bowl and mix. Fold in chocolate chips.
- Cover dough with plastic wrap and let rest in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 190 °C top/bottom heat.
- Divide dough into evenly sized portions with a spoon and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake in preheated oven for about 10 minutes or until desired browning.
- Bon appetit!
