Magazine Monday #4: Mmmm Cookies

It's that time of the week again.

It's also that time if the month, and that means cravings. On Friday, I had a huge burger and fries, and today my palate screamed for sugar. I could have been wimpy about it and gone to buy some chocolate, but since I have baking/cooking on my schedule for Mondays, and this little blog event started by Ivonne, I caved and baked instead.

This recipe came from the November 2006 Bon Appetit issue, and, now that I reread the accompanying article, is actually a Dorie Greenspan recipe from her book Baking: From My Home to Yours. It's one of the best chocolate chip cookie recipes I've made. I know, I know; everyone has their own special chocolate chip cookie recipe, and there are bazillions of them out there. This one just happens to be one of my favourites.

I used my #16 cookie scoop and it was a bad idea. The cookies spread quite a bit and the #16 is actually equivalent to 1/3 cup - too large for a cookie in a home-baking situation. I could only get four per sheet. For the final bit of dough I used my #70 cookie scoop, which is equivalent to about 1 TBSP, and they turned out much better.

I highly recommend cookie scoops, by the way. They make cookie-baking so much easier and far more consistent. The number is engraved on the inner slide of the cookie scoop, and it tells you how many cookies you get per quart of dough (it's an American thing, I assume). So, #16 gives you 16 cookies per quart, etc.

My Best Chocolate Chip Cookies, by Dorie Greenspan, via Bon Appetit November 2006

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking soda
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup (packed) light brown sugar
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
12 ouncs bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chips, or 2 cups store-bought chocolate chips or chunks
1 cup finely chopped pecans

Sift, cream, blend, fold. Yadda x3. Bake at 350F (the original recipe says 375F, but chocolate is extremely heat sensitive and I don't bake anything with chocolate in it above 350F).

Enjoy!