Cookie #1 - The Classic Chocolate Chip cookie

To start the 89 cookie challenge, it made sense to go with the most popular cookie in the Milk and Cookie cookbook - chocolate chip.  This recipe is an amazing twist on the quintessential American classic. In addition to chocolate chunks, the recipe calls for chocolate shavings or curls.

Chocolate chip cookies and a jeweled mason jar of milk - keeping it classy!

After reading a few amazon reviews on the cookbook itself, here is what I did:

 - Butter - I waited for the butter to get to room temp and then I beat the tar out of it, till it was super creamy. The book says to whip the bitter until light and creamy, so this isn't different from the book, it's just different from my usual throw the sugar, eggs, vanilla, and butter together then beat method. The amazon reviewer emphasized the importance of actually beating the butter for a good 3-5 minutes, so I did, it worked well.

 - Oat flour - The recipe called for oat flour from processed oats,I just threw the oats in my blend tech and one I had flour, I added the rest of the dry ingredients into the blender too, no point making another bowl dirty says I.

 - Ingredient variations - salted butter, chocolate chips, salt, eggs - My slight variations on the recipe based on what was in my kitchen at the time of baking: I used salted butter rather than unsalted which it calls for, I used chocolate chips instead of chunks, I are a touch more salt, I used extra large eggs rather than large eggs. 

 - Baking time - The only real difference in my preparation was the baking time. The recipe said to bake the cookie for 15 minutes, which seems like an unconscionably long time to bake a cookie. I live comfortably in the world of under done cookies and I just could not cook then longer than 10 minutes, which is the longest I have *ever* baked a cookie (on purpose anyway).  The recipe called for cookies that were big, I used my 1/4 cup measuring cup as the scoop.  For such big cookies, 10 minutes worked.  When I decided to make the cookies a bit smaller - ie my normal cookie size, my normal baking time worked well too - 7 minutes.

Big cookies - only 6 per sheet.

The result was amazing! I liked it better than the one i had at the milk and cookies store itself - probably the extra salt and the underdone softness.  Seriously one of the best cookies I have ever made and I am known for my cookies. The shaved chocolate gives melted yuminess in every bite. The oat flour gives it a nutty taste and a heartier texture. It is really good. The other thing I like about the recipe is the amount of vanilla - 1/2 tablespoon. I wanted to shout amen! I *always* add substantially more vanilla than most cookie recipes call for because it is such an important ingredient. And my vanilla is already stronger than most store bought vanilla because I make it myself with good vodka and hand scraped Madagascar vanilla beans.

I loved this recipe, but the ass pain associated with grating 2 while bars of chocolate may keep me from making it as often as other cookies in my repertoire. Perhaps I'll source some chocolate curls and then it will be in my regular rotation for sure, it is that good.