My Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

What is it that makes a GREAT chocolate chip cookie? Do you like them soft or crunchy? Is it best when it first comes out of the oven when it is still slightly gooey and warm? Or do you prefer it crunchy on the outside but soft in the middle? Do you pick the cookie with the most visible chocolate chips like my husband does? Do you like yours slightly undercooked? 

Growing up the only chocolate chip cookies that I would eat were the ones that were within the first half hour of coming out of the oven. Store bought? No thanks, not for me. I grew up on the cookies made with the recipe on the back of a Nestle Toll house bag of chocolate chips. I THOUGHT the best chocolate chip cookies were crunchy but slightly soft and gooey in the center... And than I met my husband.

When Sione and I were dating I notice that he would always buy chocolate chip cookies from Subway and he'd put them in the microwave for a few seconds before eating them. When I asked why, he claimed that soft warm chocolate chip cookies were waaay better then crunchy. So a little after we were married I decided I would try and make him some cookies that he would like. That's when I discovered this recipe from allrecipes. It is perfect just the way it is. In fact after eating them I became converted to soft chocolate chip cookies!

The best thing about this recipe is the fact that even though they are soft they are not crumbly at all. They even taste great a day or two after baking (although they rarely last that long in our house). I am always getting requests for this recipe and have been asked to make these cookies for all sorts of occasions. So as requested, I have finally gotten around to posting the recipe on here. 

The dough can also be refrigerated or freezed so you can mix it ahead of time and make yourself a fresh cookie whenever you feel like it. We love making giant cookies and eating it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and whipped cream for dessert every once in a while! Okay enough of that, here's the recipe:

My Favorite The BEST Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies

*makes 4 dozen

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup white sugar

1 (3.4 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2) Sift together flour and baking soda and set aside

3) Cream together butter and sugars. Beat in pudding mix, vanilla, and eggs.

4) Stir in chocolate chips.

5)Drop spoonfuls of dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 10 to 12 minutes. The edges should be  golden brown.

6) Move to foil or cooling rack to cool.

Now go ahead and make these and find out for yourself if  they really are the BEST chocolate chip cookies EVER!

P.S. These cookies are so good that my step-sister who doesn't like chocolate (I know, how is that possible right) will make these without the chocolate chips  and people still love them!

 

Cream Puffs

When Sione and I were first dating I was introduced to cocoa puffs from Liliha bakery. Everyone loves them here in Hawaii and he couldn't believe that I had never had them before. They are basically cream puffs with chantilly cream on top of them. If you have ever had a cocoa puff you may end up hating me for this next statement but, I didn't think the cocoa puffs lived up to all the hype I'd been hearing about them. Now don't get me wrong they didn't taste bad, they were actually pretty good; it's just that homemade cream puffs taste oh so much better.

I learned how to make cream puffs in Young Women when I was around 13 years old, so I took this as an opportunity to introduce Sione to homemade cream puffs. I told him that if you've never tasted filet mignon because you've only been eating hamburger steak your entire life you would never see any problems with hamburger steak and think that it is the best. Now that he'd met me, I was excited to introduce him to some filet mignon!

Instead of just making some cream puffs for him, I decided to teach him how to make them himself! It was a great date. We even took some over to his home to share with his parents. Long story short, he no longer cares for cocoa puffs and prefers homemade cream puffs.  I still have to silently chuckle whenever we eat pastries and he says things like "this is a little too dry for my taste." Oh how far his taste buds and food knowledge has come (he even poached some eggs today).

Recipe (makes 40 large cream puffs)

Ingredients:

1cup butter

2 cup water

2 cup flour

7 eggs

Filling:

2 cups heavy cream

1 1/2 cups milk

1 package (3.5 oz) chocolate pudding

1 package (3.5 oz) vanilla pudding

Directions:

1) Bring water and butter to a rolling boil in a medium pan.

2) Vigorously mix in flour until in forms a ball.

3) Transfer dough into a mixing bowl and beat in one egg at a time. (dough will temporarily separate but keep mixing until you come out with a consistency seen in the photo below).

4)Drop tablespoon amounts onto a greased cookie sheet and bake in a preheated 425 degree oven for 25 minutes.

5) While the puffs are baking cream together heavy cream, milk, and pudding mixes. Cover and put into the refrigerator for later.

6) Move puffs to a cooling rack when they are done baking (middles should be dry) to cool completely.

7) Once puffs are completely cooled poke a hole in them and pipe them full with the filling.

*drizzle with Nutella Chocolate Glaze, top with a dollop of Chantilly frosting, or dust with powdered sugar to finish.

**to be sure that your puffs don't deflate be sure that your oven is completely preheated before putting them into the oven to bake. Also it is helpful to use a steak knife to poke a hole into each cream puff 10 minutes into baking time. If you find that your puffs are deflating it is probably because they need a little more baking time.

As a side note, you may end up with a little extra filling but don't fret. It's basically pudding so just grab a spoon and dig right in!

Nutella Chocolate Glaze Recipe

I'm back! I promise I haven't given up on baking, I just somehow managed to gain about 5 pounds over the holidays and wouldn't allow myself to bake anything until I got them off. Happy to report mission accomplished! Now back to the baking and blogging. Every year at church  we have a ward dinner where the men have a dessert challenge. They compete for bragging rights to see who can come up with the best dessert. The only qualification is that they have to make it (not their wives). It's a lot of fun and they end up coming up with some pretty awesome desserts too! Sione doesn't really care if he wins but when it comes to sharing an awesome dessert I have a hard time passing up the opportunity.

Since he knows how to make cream puffs and I've been craving them, I told him he should make cream puffs. "Sione knows how to make cream puffs?" you may be asking yourself if you know him, but we'll go more into that story in my next post....Now back to the Nutella Chocolate Glaze. When we make cream puffs we usually dust them with powdered sugar, but there are bragging rights at stake here. I was brainstorming ways he could kick the dessert up a notch. And there it was staring me right in the face, a nice bottle of Nutella. How about we drizzle those delectable little puffs of yumminess with some Nutella Chocolate Glaze! So off I went to figure out how to make a drizzle worthy of marrying its tastiness to the scrumptiousness that is a cream puff made at home. Here's what I came up with:

Nutella Chocolate Glaze Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1/4 C.  heavy cream
• 1/4 C.  confectioner's sugar
• 1 T. Nutella

Directions:

Just combine and whisk the ingredients together until it is silky and smooth. Then pour drizzle it onto what ever your Nutella loving heart desires.

My next mission will be discovering new things to pour drizzle this glaze onto...perhaps bananas, pumpkin bread, my fingers...(don't deny it, I know you were thinking it too)!

 

Peanut Butter Reindeer Cookies: Recipe

My new favorite Christmas cookie...for the moment anyways. I love soft peanut butter cookies and then you add some chocolate and then the sweet and saltiness of the chocolate covered pretzels, heavenly!

Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 cup your favorite peanut butter
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda

Directions:

1) Cream together butters and sugar. Beat in the eggs

2) In a separate bowl, sift together remaining ingredients.

3) Add flour mixture to butter and eggs.

4) Once combined cover and refrigerate for about an hour.

5) Roll chilled dough into 1 inch balls and place onto a baking sheet.

*For plain peanut butter cookies flatten each ball with a fork making a criss cross pattern.

*For reindeer cookies  roll one 1 inch ball and one 1 1/2 inch ball per reindeer. Use the bottom of a glass to flatten the cookies and place the smaller circle onto the larger one (don't center).

6) Bake for 8-10 minutes in a 375 degree preheated oven, just until the edges begin to brown. Be careful not to overbake. 

*For reindeer cookies add M&M nose, Keebler Fudge Dipped Pretzels, and mini chocolate chips for eyes immediately after taking it out of the oven. Then move to cool.

7)Move to foil or cooling rack to cool. 

Melting Snowman Chocolate Sugar Cookies

Christmas is right around the corner, and nothing says Christmas like snowmen and cookies. But here in Hawaii  since I don't live up in Mauna Kea a snowman sadly would not survive. So these "I'm melting!" Snowmen Cookies are a great tribute to Christmas here in the islands. I've seen similar cookies done before on Pinterest and figured I'd give it a decorating go myself. They are quite cute and tasty if I do say so myself! 
It was also an awesome opportunity to test out a Chocolate Sugar Cookie Recipe and to once again use my new favorite royal icing recipe (I actually feel like I'm a professional decorator every time I use it). I'm not that huge a fan of sugar cookies, but these chocolate sugar cookies are absolutely amazing!!!

CHOCOLATE SUGAR COOKIES:
      Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup Dark chocolate cocoa powder
1/8 tsp. salt
6 tbsp. (3 oz.) unsalted butter, at room temperature
¾ cup confectioners’ sugar
1 large egg
½ tsp. vanilla extract

 Directions:
In a small bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder and salt; whisk to blend and set aside. In another bowl combine the butter and sugar with an electric mixer.  Beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes.  Blend in the egg and vanilla.  With the mixer on low speed, add the dry ingredients and mix just until incorporated and no streaks remain.  Form the dough into a disc, wrap tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, 1-2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 325˚ F.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.  On a lightly floured work surface, roll the dough out to about ¼-inch thickness.  Cut out desired shapes with cookie cutters and place cut outs on the prepared baking sheet.  Bake 10-12 minutes, just until set.  Let cool on the baking sheet about 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.  Decorate as desired.

Yield: will make 30 1 1/2 inch round cookies, but amount will vary depending on the size of the cookie cutter(s) you use.

*P.S. I made one batch and then 3 more because they taste that good!

I'm working on a few other Christmas craft projects so I'm sorry I've been missing in action for a while. I should be posting up a few more recipes by the end of the year (fingers crossed).

Happy Baking!

It's a Boy cupcakes and White Chocolate Frosting Tutorial

Cupcakes for another Boy Baby Shower!

Since these toppers were made with white chocolate dipped Oreo cookie bark I decided to try out a white chocolate frosting. The name is a little deceiving because there is no actual white chocolate in this frosting. However it is white chocolate flavored with the help of the secret ingredient...shhhh this secret ingredient does all the work for me and get people guessing how I did it. It also keeps the frosting nice and light and creamy but thick enough to not melt right off like a whipped cream frosting. So, what is it?

It's white chocolate flavored instant pudding! It helps me end up with a nice creamy texture that isn't too sweet.

White Chocolate Frosting
Ingredients:
-1 box (1 oz.) Jello white chocolate instant pudding
-2 C. heavy whipping cream
-1 C. powdered sugar

Directions:
1) whip together the pudding and whipping cream until nice and thick with an electric mixer (5-7 minutes)
2)add in powdered sugar and whip for another 2-3 minutes making sure the sugar is well incorporated.
3)do a quick taste test (WARNING: after this step you may need to make an extra batch)

Yield: This will frost about a dozen standard sized cupcakes if you are going to pipe it on, 2 dozen if you just want to spread it on.

Note: For the cupcakes above, I doubled the recipe and added some blue food coloring paste to half of the frosting and topped some semi-homemade Devil's Food Cupcakes.

Royal Icing Recipe and Thanksgiving Cookies

I discovered an amazing Royal Icing Recipe over at Sweetopia. I've always wanted to be able to decorate sugar cookies like a pro (you know with an icing that would harden and be able to be packaged and given as a gift for any occasion) . And once I discovered the recipe I knew I needed a reason to test it out. I tried as best as I could to wait until after Thanksgiving but I opted out of baking cupcakes for our Thanksgiving dessert and made these cookies instead. They turned out pretty good for my first attempt at decorating.

The Royal Icing hardened perfectly and it even tasted good! I was afraid of it tasting like pure sugar but it has just the right amount of sweetness for me :0) Here's the recipe:

ROYAL ICING RECIPE
Ingredients:
-3/4 C. warm water
-5 Tbs. Meringue Powder (vanilla flavored, if not just add a tsp. of clear vanilla extract)
-1 tsp. cream of tartar
-2.25 lbs.powdered sugar

Directions:
1) Mix water and Meringue Powder together with a whisk until frothy and thickened (about 30 seconds)
2) Add cream of tartar and whisk for about 30 more seconds.
3) Add all of powdered sugar at once and mix at the lowest speed with your mixer using a paddle attachment if available for 10 minutes. The icing will get thick and creamy.

You can now add food coloring (the gel kind is best) or water to get desired color and consistency (I might only add water for icing used to flood cookies).

I'd highly recommend checking out the cookie decorating tutorial over at Sweetopia, she does an excellent job giving tips and tricks for any newbie cookie decorator like me!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving, I'm grateful you stopped by! I'd love to see how your cookie decorating turns out if you use this recipe.