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If you’re looking for the perfect chocolate chip cookie for some quarantine baking, I’ve got the recipe for you. This is by far my family’s favourite recipe; my husband recognizes the aroma when he comes home from work and there’s usually half a dozen eaten off the cooling tray within minutes of his arrival. They use basic, everyday ingredients—so no unnecessary trips to the grocery store—and the recipe can actually be used for many other types of cookies.
There is one secret ingredient: corn starch. It results in a cookie that is tender and soft but doesn’t crumble in your hands when you take a bite. Pure perfection!
My kids like to smoosh down the dough before they bake, but you certainly don’t need to do this! If you do, they will be a little larger and flatter than if you don’t. Also, I NEVER bake a cookie to the point of browning, I always take them out of the oven when they are just barely golden around the bottom. When you take them out of the oven they will seem under cooked and way too soft, so just leave them on the hot tray for 5 minutes to cook a tiny bit more and they’ll be perfect!
Depending how big you make them, you should get about 30 small guys (using a tsp) or two dozen regular sized (using a tbsp) cookies. The base recipe is Anna Olson’s Brown Sugar Cookie Dough, from her book, “Back to Baking: 200 Timeless Recipes to Bake, Share and Enjoy.”
Anna Olson’s Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients:
0.5 cup softened unsalted butter
0.5 cup packed light brown sugar
0.25 cup sugar
1 room temperature egg (if you forget to make it room temp, just put it in a bowl of warm water for 10 minutes)
1 tsp vanilla
1.25 cups all purpose flour
2 tbsp cornstarch
0.5 tsp baking soda
0.5 tsp salt
1 cup chocolate chips
Directions:
one: preheat the oven to 350 F and line two trays with parchment or Silpats. Cream the butter with the sugars until fluffy, then beat in the egg, then the vanilla.
two: in another bowl, stir the flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt.
three: add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir to blend. Stir in chocolate chips.
four: drop by the spoonful (tbsp or tsp, your choice) leaving 1.5 inches (4 cm) between them since they will spread, even if you smoosh them down.
five: bake for about 10 minutes—Anna says to bake until the cookies are golden brown, but I prefer to take them out of the oven when just the bottom edge of the cookies are golden brown. Leave them on the tray for 5 minutes, a crucial step if you’re cooking them how I like them, as the cookies need this extra time on the hot tray to firm up before being moved. Then transfer them to a wire rack to cool as much as they can before they are completely consumed! Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days (they won’t last that long!).
Let me know if you try these, and tell me if you’re able to eat just one!
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turquoise toffee 