Baking Cookies with Mom

My grown-up daughter is visiting this weekend and, since I do not get to see her very often, it is always so GREAT to see her. During her visits I plan outings or other activities like shopping, movies or going out to dinner. Sounds like wild and crazy stuff, right? Wild and crazy I am not!

During this visit my daughter said she missed baking with me, and had a yen for my chewy chocolate chip cookies. AWWWW! She had me at “missed  baking with me.” A few tears welled up in my eyes. This 25 year old lives in one of the most dynamic and hip places in the country, has an amazing job, and all she wants to do is bake cookies with her mom??  Well, I must have done something right. Right?

Tomorrow we will make my best chewy chocolate chip cookies. The trick with my cookies is to use bread flour instead of all purpose which enhances the chewiness due to its higher protein content. I like to add some whole wheat flour as well, which adds great color and a nutty  quality. If whole wheat is your thing, just sub out one cup of bread flour, and replace it with one cup of whole wheat flour.

Another tip is to use lots of chocolate chips. Try adding half mini and half larger semisweet chips. That way EVERY cookie is guaranteed to have tons of chocolate in it. You can combine different types of chips as well. There are milk chocolate chips, dark chocolate chips and white chocolate chips. Or go really crazy and combine some chocolate chips with some peanut butter chips.

Speaking if peanut butter – if you substitute peanut butter for the softened butter in the recipe, your cookies will become peanut butter. Who doesn’t love peanut butter and chocolate?! If you don’t like peanut butter, try almond or cashew butter for something completely different.

I promise to report back tomorrow to let you know how the cookies turned out along with a picture!

Happy Baking!

Chef Gail