the best chocolate chip cookies. ever.

Yesterday I woke up to a 5:30am phone call from the school – another snow day! So many people around here complain about the snow but I personally love it.  Give me a snow day home with my kids any time you want! We watched movies on the floor under blankets, had soup & grilled cheese for lunch, hot chocolate with marshmallows and then they built snowmen in the backyard. I see nothing wrong with this picture. :)

My husband worked an over-nighter at the firehouse which means us other four Millers were literally snowed-in (as in, you can’t really open the front door!) Yes I like snow days but you really, really shouldn’t expect me to go outside and shovel at any point. I heard Gracie say “Someone is here!” from the living room window and I knew it would be my Dad. It was. Him and one of my brothers came to shovel and snow-blow for us. :) I wanted to bake them cookies as a treat so I whipped-up some homemade chocolate chips. This is the best recipe. I really like my homemade chocolate chips to be soft – not crispy at all. If you like them that way too, follow along.

Mmmmm… cookie dough…

The Pampered Chef Cookie Scoop may be one of my favorite kitchen tools ever. If you don’t already have one, you must get one! They make the perfect truffle and the perfect cookie. I really hate rolling dough. I am very compulsive and the idea that all of those dough balls are just a shade smaller than each other is maddening to me. =P

See? Perfectly shaped cookie balls! However, I will say that if you leave them like this, they sort of bake in a similar shape and don’t spread very much. So for this recipe, I do recommend flattening the dough balls ever so slightly with the bottom of a small glass. Like this.

Yes, I do lightly spray my baking sheets. Always. Even if a recipe says not to, I do. What can I say? I like to live dangerously. That, and I get very nervous when I think of cookies sticking.

In about 10 minutes, you’ll have deliciously soft chocolate chip cookies to enjoy with your milk, tea, coffee, 5pm cocktail… I take them out of the oven as soon as I see the bottoms start to brown. That’s tip #1 to getting a perfectly soft cookie. Tip #2 is to cool them on the sheet until you can move them and then continue the cooling process on a wire rack. And the final tip is this: as soon as they are cool enough to stack without crumbling (can be up to a half hour ~ you don’t need to rush), store them in an air-tight container. If you leave them out, your cookies will harden.

I present to you, the perfect chocolate chip cookie…

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies. Ever.

1 cup (2 sticks) of salted butter
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 package of instant vanilla pudding (I use French Vanilla)
2 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips (I use Ghirardelli)
2 1/4 cups flour

1. Preheat oven to 350. Sift together flour and baking soda and set aside.

2. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars. Stir in pudding mix until well combined. Add in vanilla and eggs. Gradually stir in flour mixture (you’ll probably need to mix it with your hands towards the end). Lastly, stir in (again, I use my hands) all of your chips.

3. Scoop out cookie dough into 1-inch balls and place about 2″ apart onto your cookie sheets (greased, ungreased… your call). Bake for 10-12 minutes. If you want them gooey and soft like ours, take them out at the 10 minute mark, right when the edges start to brown. If you like them a little bit more crispy, leave in for the 12 minutes.

4. Cool on wire racks and store in an air-tight container.

(This recipe makes approximately 36 cookies.)

Enjoy!