cookies! a recipe by tracie :3

Everyone loves chocolate chip cookies!

Well, almost. I have a friend who despises chocolate so I always set aside a batch of anti-chocolate cookies just for her. But either way, cookies! Surely a simple recipe, right? All you need is flour, sugar, more sugar, egg, vanilla, baking soda, salt, butter, chocolate… hey, why are there so many ingredients? Don’t people usually think of cookies as one of the simpler recipes?

Unfortunately (or fortunately) for me, things never go according to plan when I bake cookies. Even though I’ve baked them countless times, I always seem to forget how long I’m supposed to bake them for the perfect cookie texture. Mix up baking soda with baking powder and you’ll be taking out 6 charcoal disks instead of 6 edible cookies. Crack open an egg and you might get two yolks instead of the one you need. Or, crack open an egg from a carton labeled “LARGE BROWN EGGS” and get a nickel-sized yolk. Pour out granulated sugar from a paper bag and end up dumping in two more cups than intended.

But in the end, something always comes out edible. You may have to adjust the amount of flour until you have a workable dough, carefully scoop out the extra sugar (and put it back in the bag without telling mom), and bake a couple batches until the cookies come out not caving in or burnt. The beauty of baking is that it is a process adjusted and refined over time, through repetition and experience and experimentation. This isn’t exactly a holy grail recipe – no matter how precisely I follow the instructions, the cookies seem to turn out different every time. Despite how they turn out, whether they’re a bit too brown around the edges or a bit too soft in the middle, my brother will still eat them. My dad will still take them to work, boasting about how good his kid is at baking and triumphantly handing them out to his coworkers. My mom will still eat three a day, even though she claims she will cut down on sugar. I will still send my boyfriend to college every week with a container of 20 cookies because according to him, as long as it has chocolate and is made by me, it will be a good cookie. And for me, who doesn’t like appreciating (and eating) the fruits of their labor?

TraciE's Trial-and-much-Error Cookies

- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 tbsp vanilla
- 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt (to taste)
- 3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (to taste)

1. Preheat oven to 350F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium sized bowl and set aside.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar until it forms a paste. Add the egg and vanilla and mix until combined. 
4. Pour a fourth of the dry ingredient mixture into the wet ingredients and fold together with a spatula until combined. Repeat this process until all the dry ingredients have been incorporated into the wet mixture.
5. Set aside a portion of dough for your chocolate-hater friend if you wish, then fold chocolate chips into your remaining dough.
6. Scoop a tablespoon of dough for each cookie onto the baking sheet, making sure to spread them out unless you want polygonal cookies. Bake for 10-12 minutes, depending on how many cookies you bake at a time (more cookies = more time) and how powerful your oven is (trial and error... good luck).
7. Enjoy!