My love of baking began when I was little when my mom and I used to bake sugar drop cookies with oil (I never then and still don't now understand why "with oil" was part of the recipe's name) once every couple of months. We never branched out to try other flavours - every time we decided to bake I was insistent that we make those ones. They were fairly simple but I always opened The Joy of Cooking to the right page to follow along as we baked, the page stained with drops of oil and grains of sugar from years of making the recipe. (This habit of looking at the recipe even when I make it all the time and really should (do) know it by heart persists to this day, with many of my cookbook pages similarly stained with ingredients.) My favourite part was at the end when we got to dip the balls of dough into sugar, and then put them on the cookie sheet.
For the six years between 1996- 2002 when I went to the same school, I used to go to Bagelworks (just across the street) and buy a peanut peanut butter chocolate chunk cookie at least twice, usually more times, a week. Oh my gosh those cookies were delicious - especially when I could get them warm/fresh out of the oven when the chocolate was still melted. Sadly, Bagelworks (which at some point between 1996-2002 changed its name to Bakeworks but I always still called it Bagelworks) closed that location (although it is now this popular vegetarian restaurant called Fresh which I like) and I haven't had one of those cookies in years.
In the fall of 2008, the month of October to be exact, I began to bake from scratch for the first time (in way too long) since my mom and I used to bake those sugar drop cookies with oil. I was in Austin at the time and was taking this seminar on early Modern European History and I had to present on the readings to the class and was very nervous. I decided a good way to make myself feel better and make the class more fun was to bake cookies to bring with me for everyone. I went for chocolate chip as it is just a classic cookie type and very reliable. I just googled chocolate chip cookie recipe and found this one which is still my go-to recipe today. When I was a kid my brother used to make really delicious chocolate chip cookies (I think he got the recipe from The Joy of Cooking too) so probably as a result of that chocolate chip has always been my favourite cookie type. So I made them that day and they were a huge hit, and since then I've been a faithful cookie baker.
I think two of the secrets to my chocolate chip cookies' deliciousness and success are that I always add either walnuts or pecans; and I use milk chocolate, instead of regular, chocolate chips. I've had people who take cooking/baking really seriously and cookbook authors (including Dorie Greenspan) go on about how the quality of chocolate used in chocolate chip cookies is so super important and that it's best to buy expensive chocolate and chop it into chunks or chips yourself for all your cookie needs. I couldn't disagree more. The one time I had homemade chocolate chip cookies which had been made with expensive chocolate I wasn't particularly impressed. In fact, I mostly thought how my cookies using regular old Hersheys or Toll House or grocery store brand chocolate chips are better. (Is that a terrible thing to think? I hope not :) ) I agree that quality ingredients produce quality end results but I think that applies much more to dinners and hearty food or desserts involving fruit than it does to cookies.
As my previous blog post attests, I am a cake girl through and through and will always love it best. Cookies, however, do have their charms and are better than cakes in a few ways. First, baking cookies usually requires less ingredients and easier clean up because I beat cookie dough by hand and not with an electric mixer. Second, cookies bake in 8-10 minutes which is much shorter than cakes. Third, one of my favourite things about cookie recipes in general is the mix of both white and brown sugar in chocolate chip cookie recipes. Such a fabulous combo! Fourth, it's easier and better to eat cookies straight out of the oven. I love them freshly baked when they are still hot and the chocolate is still melted. I also love them an hour later, 2 hours later, the next day, etc. But being able to eat them off the tray is fabulous, and something I can't do with cakes which need time to cool before they can be eaten. Two important things that homemade cookies and cakes do share, however, is that both give one's kitchen/house/apt a wonderful aroma while baking, and that it is so hard to eat just one cookie or just one piece of cake.
Before I finish this entry, I have one more cookie related item to write about. Around the end of March/beginning of April, K. made (and gave me one) these chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. They were so good! And they made me realize that I still had an almost full bag of oats in my cupboard (left over from the fall when I decided that instead of making my own granola every week - 10 days I was just going to buy Nature's Path granola) and that I needed to use it before it expired in July. So when I got home that day, I googled chocolate chip oatmeal cookie recipes and I found one. An amazing one that resulted in cookies which that got lots of compliments and tasted super delicious and which I'm really happy about. Here's the recipe - you should try it: you won't regret it! But note: the walnuts are optional and substitute in milk chocolate chips.
Oh I'm craving a cookie right now! And writing about those Bagelworks peanut butter chocolate chunk ones makes me crave those, and since I've never before baked peanut butter cookies I think I'm going to try to make them this summer!
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