Baking Day!

Bonjour mes amies! It's almost the end of the week! Hooray! Unless you're like me and you work weekends! Woohoo! :)

I had off of work today, so I decided to take advantage of it and make it a baking day! Not to mention, Brian and I are having friends over tonight and I can't stand the idea of not having a treat to offer! Chocolate chip cookies it is!

Now, normally I would scour the internet searching for THE PERFECT CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE recipe, follow said recipe, and then be thoroughly disappointed with the not-quite-soft/chewy/fluffy-enough outcome. However, today I wanted to try something different and- gasp!- follow the recipe on the back of my bag of mini Nestle chocolate chips. A daring decision, no doubt, but it was a risk I was willing to take. So I gathered up my supplies (in other words, asked Brian to run to the grocery store because I needed butter and baking soda) and got down to bid-ness.

(For reference, this is the recipe I followed...)
2 1/4 Cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 Cup of butter, softened (2 sticks)
3/4 Cup white granulated sugar
3/4 Cup packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 12 oz. bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used the minis)
1/3 Cup chopped nuts, optional (I used pecans)

Preheat oven to 375. Combine flour, baking soda and salt in bowl and set aside. Combine butter, white and brown sugar and vanilla in bowl and beat until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time and beat until smooth. Gradually beat in flour mixture until fully combined with butter mixture. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts. Form in to 1 inch balls, drop onto ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 9-11 minutes. (I put mine in for 10 and that was perfect). Let cool and serve.

Oh. My. Goodness. THESE COOKIES ARE GREAT! Perfect? Eh, that's debatable. But seriously good. Just the right amount of golden crispy-ness on the edges and the bottom, but perfectly chewy and soft in the middle. Perfect cookies for dipping milk. I have to say, this is the first time I think I've ever made chocolate chip cookies without shortening (Crisco) and I wonder if that would've made a differnece? I've also heard that upping the brown sugar to white sugar ratio can soften up your cookies as well. Anybody have thoughts or tips? Leave your comments and your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe in the comments section! I'm off to eat some cookies, take a nap and clean some stuff. :)


Much love always!
p.s. Prepare yourselves- there's an outfit post coming tonight!