Show-Stopping Chocolate Chip Cookies

These chocolate chip cookies are crispy-crunchy, but still substantial enough to be taken seriously by a hungry farmer with a sweet tooth. The cookies you see here were made by an 8-year-old. You can do it, too! 

Filia (my daughter) and I made this batch of cookies in honor of closing on a parcel of land--the last piece to complete our mountain homestead spread. We wanted to bring a tin to the wonderful ladies at the Title company.

After I set out the ingredients, the toddler needed me and I ended up spending awhile getting him down for his nap. In the meantime, Filia stepped to it and made the cookies (and photographed each step). Is she a prodigy or are these cookies simple to make? Both, of course 🙂

This recipe originates from the infamous Toll House cookies, which were created by Ruth Wakefield at her Toll House Inn in 1938. The story goes that she used an ice pick to chip up a chocolate bar, and put that in her cookie. I also like to use a chocolate bar in my cookies, rather than chocolate chips. When I cut it up, I think of Ruth outside with an icepick in a Massachusetts winter.

Nothing goes better with cookies than a cold glass of milk. For us that's goat's milk. Or maybe, if we're lucky, goat's milk ice cream.

Ingredients

These cookies are SO simple, which means that they're all about the quality of ingredients you choose. Two ingredients stand out as making the biggest impact: 1) maple sugar and 2) European-style butter (85% fat content).

My family loves a good treat, but sugar never makes us feel very good. That's why I use maple sugar: it's an unrefined sweetener that doesn't spike blood sugar as much as cane sugar does. In fact, a diabetic friend confirmed this for me recently! You can absolutely use regular granulated sugar in this recipe if that's all you have on hand, but I encourage you to spring for the maple sugar sometime!

Unlike most recipes, I opt not to use a leaven like baking soda or baking powder. These tend to disturb my digestion, and leaving them out also helps achieve the Tate's-style thin crispiness that my family adores.

• Butter: It's best at room temperature! I've forgotten plenty of times though; I just cut it up into tablespoons and use it cold. Mixing with your hands can help warm frozen butter. European salted butter, which has higher butterfat, yields the crispiest cookie. If you use regular butter, omit the water in the recipe. Straus is my favorite brand.
  
• Maple Sugar: This is THE secret weapon of this recipe, and it is WORTH IT! It makes the perfect texture for a crispy, crunchy cookie. (Yes, you can use another granulated sweetener instead with the same amount. Increase oven temp by 25 degrees if using cane sugar).
  
• Flour: Using a low-protein flour does help the cookies stay thin and crispy. But I don't bother with that. I buy a 50-lb bag of organic unbleached white flour and use it for everything, including bread and pastries! I like Central Milling Company's stuff. 
  
• Eggs: From our hens, you know it!
  
• Vanilla Extract: For years I omitted this, and you absolutely can do that, but it really adds some flavor.
  
• Chocolate: I like to use the highest quality chocolate bar I can find. Cutting a bar into chunks adds a certain something. I usually opt for a Hu dark chocolate bar. 
  
• Pecans: Don't forget the nuts. They're extra-awesome if you soak in salt water and dry them out first, but you can throw them in raw, too.

See recipe card for quantities.

Instructions

Variations

You can make a number of different fruit-based crisps using this method including:

• pear
• peach
• apricot
• cherry
• pineapple
• blueberry
• raspberry