cooking with charlie: September 2012

Sometimes you just need a cookie to make a day, like today, a little better. This morning I woke up thinking about the events of 9/11 and thought I would bring cookies to work, but in particularly to a coworker who survived the 9/11 attacks on the Pentagon. He has a bit of a sweet tooth and figured it would be a nice gesture to say, "hey! I'm glad you're here and I care"

AND I always have the essentials at home: chocolate chips and butter.

The recipe I made came from a cookbook I just got from a little bakery in Brooklyn, NY named One Girl Cookies.

Adam and I went up to Brooklyn for the day to get my "foodie" tattoo touched up by Joy at Twelve 28 Tattoo Shop!

After we went to the infamous Grimaldi's for pizza and decided to go walk down by the water. On the way back we stumbled upon this little bakery with big windows and simple chic decor. We bought two pumpkin whoopie pies for the road, and boy were they good! I of course saw that they had a cookbook and after quickly glancing at it decided to buy it. It has some great recipes that I am excited to try! Here's the first that I tried!

Here is my TINY fork tattoo done by Joy Rumore

I made their Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies, which were promised to be, "cakey, bittersweet, small and thick"

Recipe:

Makes about 36 cookies

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp table salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Step 1:
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt

Step 2:
In a large bowl beat together the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugars on medium speed until light and fluffy. If you're like me and in patient on letter butter sit at room temperature, store your butter in the freezer and then shred the butter. I promise it works! Then add the eggs and vanilla, and mix on medium speed for 1 minute.

Step 3:

Gradually add all of the flour mixture but stop mixing on low speed before it is completely incorporated. Add the chocolate chips and mix on low speed for 20 seconds! MOST IMPORTANT STEP: try to cookie dough... you know quality control ;) Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate the dough for at least 1 hour, or overnight.

Step 4:
Preheat oven to 350 F

Step 5:
Remove the dough from the fridge. Using a small cookie scoop or a spoon scoop out small rounds about 1 1/2 tablespoons each, onto parchment paper-lined baking sheet, leaving 1 inch between cookies.

Step 6:
Bake, rotating the sheet halfway through, for about 15 minutes, until the cookies are lightly browned. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool.

NOW for what actually happened....

Here I am thinking that these cookies are going to be small and round and cakey and this is what I got for batch #1:

WHAT?!

Now some of you must be thinking, "You just suck at baking" WELL actually I'm pretty good and I've made chocolate chip cookies PLENTY of times before, so I tried a different approach.. I scooped and rolled the dough first and this is what I got with Batch # 2:

BETTER....

Now these got better looking, BUT in the forward of the book (YES I am probably one of the only people that reads those in cookbooks!) it said that their cookies were all about being small... these cookies are normal sized! SO, I tried batch number three by using a measuring teaspoon to scoop... Batch #3:

So these were TOO brown...

So I decided to make something out of the BIG cookie I got from batch #1:

ALWAYS try to make it better!

So the last batch (#4) I decided to use small scoops and lower the temperature and time... 325F for 10minutes and VOILA! Batch #4: