April 2010

Once while I was selling my homemade butternut squash, cinnamon rolls, a customer asked me, “Do you ever make anything simple?  Like chocolate chip cookies?”

Years later, I baked my response, and the answer was yes, I bake chocolate chip cookies, but even the way I make the classic cookie probably doesn’t count as simple.  In my health and environmental efforts, I have added a few extra ingredients.

C is for Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 stick butter, softened
½ cup light brown sugar
¼ cup local, wildflower honey
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
1-cup whole-wheat pastry
¼ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
¾ cup old-fashioned oats
Chocolate chips to heart’s content

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350˚F

Place the butter, brown sugar and brown sugar in the bowl of a mixer and beat on medium speed until blended.  Scrape down the bowl with a spatula.

Add the egg and vanilla.  Mix well.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.  Add to the butter mixture all at once.  Turn the mixer on the lowest speed and blend slowly until there are no more patches of flour.  Scrape down the bowl.

Add the oats and blend on low until combined.  Remove the bowl from the mixer and stir gently a few times with the spatula to make sure there are no patches of unincorporated flour or butter.

Add chocolate chips to heart’s content and mix into the batter with the spatula.

Using a large spoon, scoop portions of cookie dough onto a prepared baking stone, spaced about 2 inches apart.

Bake 13-16 minutes, until the cookies are golden brown at the edges and still a bit pale in the center.