Cookies

Given this, I thought I would share with the world with the greatest chocolate chip cookie recipe known to god and man (women, children, and transgendered inclusive).


There's a problem with this recipe though.


It only works in Cold Lake, Alberta.

Granted, the only other place I've personally tested it is the Edmonton, Alberta, area, so I can't say if this is a latitude or humidity thing, or if it's a mixmaster thing, or what. But I can tell you that this recipe is a trickster. It's the coyote of cookie recipes. Chewy, confectionery, chocolaty coyote ...


The problem with the recipe is that when I make these cookies according to it, here, in Edmonton, they come out listless and, frankly, a little slimy. They're not perfect, the way the recipe has them built to be, the way they turn out in Cold Lake.


So I experimented.


The problem is this. The recipe calls for shortening. Cookies baked using all shortening have the aforementioned listless, slimy effect (you don't even want to know what happens if you forget you are not doubling the recipe but double the shortening anyway). The obvious substitution is margarine. But, use margarine in this recipe, and you get a solid, crumbly cookie. Blech. Dry and rather yellow.


Use half marg and half shortening, and you get the soft, chewy, vivacious cookie of my childhood, a cookie even my Mum would be proud to serve.


Thus, I present to you "Real Chocolate Chip Cookies, Caveat". Feel free to experiment yourself, depending on latitude and humidity.


1/2 cup shortening (CAVEAT! I use half shortening and half margarine. So a quarter cup of each. Unless you double the recipe, which I usually do.)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 white sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp each salt and baking soda
1 cup chocolate chips


Cream together shortening (and marg if you are using margarine), sugars, and vanilla.


Beat in the egg.


Combine flour, baking soda, and salt (apparently this means "in a separate bowl" but I just do all of this in one bowl in the mixmaster). Add to creamed mixture.


Add chocolate chips.


Lump onto cookie sheets.


Bake at 375 degrees F for 10 to 12 minutes. (But I'd watch this. In Hawk's oven, they're done in about 8).


EAT THEM. ALL. THEY ARE AMAZING.


If you take out all my notes, it's an incredibly simple recipe, and the cookies are mindblowing. As Magpie discovered, even with the wrong ingredients, even when you try to, you can't screw this one up. Hell, even with double shortening, they taste good. (And that makes 'em go down smooth. Not that I'd recommend it.)