The "Secret" is Out- Chocolate Chip Cookies

Hello, everyone! First off, I would like to apologize for being a bit of blog hermit... it's been a while since I've blogged regularly, so I'm a kind-of bad with the whole 'checking back regularly thing' but I promise I'll make it part of my daily computer routine: Sluggy Freelance, Questionable Content, Blogger, then e-mail. Yay.

Now, on with the baking! Today, I'll be rambling on about chocolate chip cookies! Happiness and bounding!

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Ingredients:

4 1/2 C. Flour

2 Tsp. Baking Soda

2 Tsp. Salt

2 Tsp. Cinnamon

1 C. Granulated Sugar

1 1/2 C. Light or Golden Brown Sugar

2 C. (16 oz.) Butter (softened)

5 Eggs

2 Tsp. Vanilla Extract

1 Large Bag of Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

Now, here's what you do:

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Put all your butter in a mixing bowl. Then leave it. You want it to be soft when you go to cream it. Trust me, I lost a very old and dear mixer that way... anyhow, I usually use Land 'O' Lakes Spreadable Butter. It's not really very spreadable, but it's handier than the sticks. 2 tubs= 2 cups of butter.

Next, put your flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon into one large bowl. The largest you have. Then mix it all up. You can use a whisk if you want, but I tend to use a wooden spoon and that does the job pretty well.

After your flour is taken care of, we shall move on to sugar. Measure it all out into another, smaller bowl, or just do what I do: put it on a paper plate. Put the sugar aside and crack all of your eggs into a small bowl or measuring cup, as I did. Add the vanilla extract and mix it up just a little bit. The yolks should be broken, but it should not be at scrambled egg level.

Next, you're going to make loud noises with a mixer. My least favorite part, but then, I don't enjoy loud noises. Anyhow, give the butter which you previously set aside a good poke and if it is still firm, you may want to microwave it just a little bit until it is soft. Try not to melt it, however.

Cream it with the mixer until it looks something like the picture. Add the sugar mixture in parts, mixing thoroughly after each addition. When the sugar is all in, start adding the eggs a little at a time. Once everything is completely mixed together, you can put the mixer away. We're done with that, thank you.

For this next part, you may want a partner. Scrape all of the butter-sugar-egg mixture into the flour mixture, which is why you wanted the flour to be in a big bowl. Mix it all together, and be sure there is no flour left on the bottom. It can be sneaky.

You may want an extra set of arms to take over halfway through. If you've done it right, it takes a bit of arm strength to mix it all up. Making cookies almost once a week for three or four years has made me pretty strong...

When you've combined all the dry and wet ingredients, the mixture should be stiff enough for you to be able to stick your spoon in the middle and have it stand up without falling over. If it's too thin, add some more flour by the 1/4 cup. When it is oven the right consistency, add the whole bag of chocolate chips.

This is the most important part of making cookies: be sure to eat a few of the chocolate chips. This is absolutely necessary. Make sure the chips are completely mixed in. You don't want any cookies to end up without chocolate chips.

If you have two cookie sheets, you'll want to use them both. It'll make things go faster. Cover your cookie sheet(s) with tin foil and scoop the dough into one-inch balls (using a cookie scoop would be ideal, but a couple of spoons will work just fine). Place them on the sheet in five by five rows. Now, the baking time is going to vary, but start out at 5 1/2 minutes. If that's not long enough, continue baking until the tops and edges are golden-brown. If your cookies come out quite brown, decrease the time to about 5 minutes.

When your cookies are done, wait about 3-ish minutes before transferring them to some lovely wire racks. This is better accomplished with a spatula than with your hands.

You'll need a place to stash your cookies. This is our cookie jar. It used to harbor giant pasta shells. This recipe will yield anywhere from 75-100 cookies, so if there's less than 4 or 5 five of you (like at my house), you may want to cut the recipe in half. They keep for a good while as long as you keep them in a receptacle of some kind.

For easy copying and the like, here's that same recipe without all the fun pictures and explanations:

Ingredients:

4 1/2 C. Flour

2 Tsp. Baking Soda

2 Tsp. Salt

2 Tsp. Cinnamon

1 C. Granulated Sugar

1 1/2 C. Light or Golden Brown Sugar

2 C. (16 oz.) Butter (softened)

5 Eggs

2 Tsp. Vanilla Extract

1 Large Bag Chocolate Chips

Preheat the oven to 450 F. Scoop butter into mixing bowl, set aside. Mix together flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon together in a large bowl. Put granulated and brown sugar on a plate and set aside. Lightly beat eggs and vanilla extract together.

Cream butter, add sugar mixture in parts to butter, then eggs and vanilla. Add wet ingredients to dry and mix thoroughly. Add chocolate chips. Put 1-inch balls of dough in 5 by 5 rows on a foil-covered cookie sheet and bake for 5 1/2 minutes or until tops and edges are golden brown.

Let cookies cool for a few minutes then transfer to wire rack to cool completely. Will stay good for a while in a container of some kind.

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So that was probably unnecessarily long. Oh, well... I'll get better at it, I promise. I just need to get into the 'groove'. I hope you all enjoy the cookies!