It only makes sense that a baked good is my first post. A few years ago, I came upon baking because I was bored and it turned out, I wasn’t too bad at it. I loved trying out new recipes and eating desserts warm, right out of the oven! I also loved spending time in the kitchen too see my parents eyes light up when they started to smell something sweet at home. My love for those little baked goods haven’t always been reciprocated. I’m not a professional so I’ve had my success but I’ve also had those little baked goods turn their backs on me and turn out to be not so tasty. Epic fails at times but you live and you learn.
So, how did cookies turn out to be my first post? The other day while I sat at my desk food coma-ing after lunch (typical work day), one of my friends in the Big Apple gchatted me that she just ate a huge cookie. I love sugar and sweets but I don’t really eat cookies. But being me and loving to look at food photos, I looked up cookies in NYC (I know, it’s kind of weird to do). Pictures of Levain Bakery cookies pop up and I needed to have one. Except I was stuck at my work desk in Maryland.
With no trip to NYC in the books, what could I do next? I looked up some recipes and decide to try one!
These are by far my best cookies I’ve ever baked. As much as I don’t eat cookies often, I am also least confident about baking cookies. I can bake bars, pies, scones without a doubt but cookies have always been a bit scary. Chewy? Soft? Crunchy? Thin? Fat? I haven’t seemed to have found the right mix to get it right. And with the irony of my blog title, this was a success but a major fail too. Clouded by excitement, I forgot to add the granulated sugar in the original recipe. I was already done with the batter. Devastated and disappointed, sad. There was no way around it so I went ahead and stuck them in the oven anyways.
Alas, they still turned out beautiful and delicious!!! It was delicious without the extra sugar (there was still brown sugar in the batter) and I may forgo the extra sugar (& calories) because it didn’t feel like the cookie was missing anything.
I experimented with the baking times- from left to right, 20, 18 and 15 minutes. For my oven, 18 minutes was perfect. As you can see with 20, the bottom began to burn a little bit and with 15 the cookie felt slightly uncooked in the middle. Nonetheless, these were gobbled up real quick. I think I will be eating cookies a lot more often, Happy Baking, happy eating, happy sharing!
Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from bromabakery.com Copycat Levain Bakery Chocolate Chip Cookies
Servings: 12 Big Cookies
Ingredients
- 3 cups plus 2 tablespoon (406 g) all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter cold and cut into cubes
- 3/4 cup + 4 teaspoons (6 ounces) light brown sugar using dark brown sugar should work
- 2 eggs lightly bean in a seperate bowl
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips original recipe calls for dark chocolate but semisweet was all I had! - chocolate is chocolate
- 1/2 cup (100 g) granulated sugar Optional - I did not add this and felt the recipe worked great but feel free to add
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F.
- Sift the flour into a medium bowl.
- Add in the baking powder, baking soda, and salt and mix away.
- In a separate deep bowl, beat the butter until it forms into one lump. Drop in the sugar and beat for another few minutes until the sugar dissolves into the butter. - Butter will start to look soft!
- Lower the speed and mix in the eggs and vanilla. Beat beat beat! The batter will not be smooth - not to worry.
- Slowly add in the flour mixture from Step 1. I added in 3-4 lumps.
- Fold in chocolate chips!
- Divide the dough into 12 even lumps. Shape the dough into a ball but don't roll it! The lumps are the beauty for the cookie.
- Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place cookie balls on top and refrigerate for a minimum of 30 minutes. ( I baked one batch after 30 minutes and my second batch after 14 hours - same result!)
- Bake cookies for 15-20 minutes. Don't forget, cookies will continue to cook as they cool! They'll be super soft to touch but will harden. I tried at 15, 18, and 20 minutes. For my oven, 18 minutes was the golden time! The middle was slightly undercooked at 15 minutes and the bottom was starting to burn at 20 (evident in the photos). 18 was perfect. Every oven is different though so find your golden cookie time!
- Cool on wire rack.
- ENJOY! Don't forget to share with your loved ones but then again, these are really good and no judging if you eat it all on your own!
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