June Cleaver's Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

I received this recipe from a woman who is the closest thing I ever met to June Cleaver of the well know 1950s TV series, "Leave It to Beaver." When I ate her chocolate chip cookies, they were the best I had ever tasted. Soft, melted but not undercooked, I asked her for the recipe, and here it is:

Ingredients

250 grams of Butter (about two sticks)

1-1/3 cups of brown sugar - the soft type, not the grainy crystals

2/3 cup sugar

2 eggs

1-2 tsp. Vanilla

3-1/2 cups sifted flour. I combine normal enriched flour with cake flour for a nice texture but that is optional.

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt (or more if the butter is unsalted)

2 cups of chocolate chips. I like bittersweet chocolate and buy a chocolate bar and cut it up into tiny cubes. For me, it's tastier.

Chopped Walnuts (optional). If there are children or old people with bad teeth in the house, be sure to chop them medium to fine.

(Before starting, see the "Very Important Note" below. Combine and cream the butter and sugars until it is absolutely consistent. It should be a light brown color, leaving hardly any light yellow patches of butter. Add eggs, blending in each one very well, then the vanilla.

In a large bowl, carefully combine the dry ingredients - the soda in particular is bitter, it really needs to be mixed for awhile If you don't have a hand-held sifter, use a fork and spend a good five minutes mixing. After that, make a deep well in the center, and then add the wet ingredients, well. making sure it's all the same color. Lastly, add the chocolate chips and chopped up walnuts, if desired.

Possible variations and substitutions

Adding 2 T. Hershey's baking cocoa to the batter to make "chocolate - chocolate chip" cookies. These are excellent. I like to add raisins but not nuts and feel like I'm eating a Cadbury chocolate bar! For these decadent darlings, they also seem to taste and look better when dished out with a heaping Tablespoon to make Huge cookies. (They require a slightly longer cooking time, around 10 minutes.) The kids like carrying them to school, and they can even be given to a friend as an informal taste treat.

Using white chocolate chips or half and half with regular chocolate chocolate chips, using the aforementioned darkened batter. (The Christians and the Moors, so to speak.)

Using the regular colored cookie dough, white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts.

Substituting 1/2 cup of coconut to the cookies and reducing the same amount of chocolate,

The main thing is to have fun and keep experimenting until you find your own best combination! :)

Very Important Note! :) The most crucial part of making these cookies a success is the combination of butter and brown sugar.

The cookie batter needs to be not too thick nor too thin - it spreads out and tends to burn. Too thick results in dry, boring lumps of clay. You will need to test it in your own oven. Mine cook for about 7 minutes at 350 degrees on the middle rack. I don't do more than one cookie sheet at a time, because when I do one tray is excellent and the other is just so-so.

Put one or two on the cookie sheet and watch the timer. The chocolate chips should be melted and the cookies should be cooked, but not dry. Once you figure out your best system, (dough consistency, time, and temperature) it will always be a winner!

Again, if on the first try they are too skimpy, add a little flour. If they are too thick, try a few drops of milk and mix again. Generally speaking, how they look when they go into the oven is a pretty good indication of how they will come out. To avoid thin, runny cookies, the dough should resemble a blob that you have to shake off the spoon (or dish out with another spoon). Once it bakes it will spread out to a normal size. For my oven, at a moderate temp, it takes 7 to 9 minutes to cook the dough and melt the chocolate. Keep an eye on them, though, and by all means, use a timer if you have one.

This makes about 4 cookie sheets full of cookies and are much better than the cardboard tasting ones that you can buy in the store.

Try to use butter if at all possible, or half butter and half margarine. It's worth the extra dollar - the cookies will be fabulous.

I found that as long as I don't eat them late at night before bed (a big No-No) I can maintain my weight.

Especially in the cooler months, when chocolate cravings hit hardest, I eat two with a glass of milk, coffee or capucchino in the afternoon, I can maintain my current weight, granted I don't overdo it in other areas. IMHO, ya gotta splurge a little, because there's more to life than broiled chicken and broccoli.

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Yours truly, ECAL