tschuppibaking

I still remember why I wanted to start baking cookies… It was several years ago when I tried a chocolate chip cookie at Starbucks. Nowadays I am not a big fan of it anymore and I would never buy cookies again. I think it is totally worth it to bake them by yourself.

My cookie boxes at home are never empty, this is what I generally care about. I like to have them always filled up and ready to be eaten when you want one. And I also think there is nothing better than giving away your cookies, wrapped nicely. It is giving your cookies a kind of personal note. But only if the cookies are good the people are going to remember them.
In the beginning I have tried several recipes but I never was that happy by the result. I was missing the perfect chewy cookie. From the crunchy outside to the chewy inside. This changed immediately after I came across the recipe from David Lebovitz. I can guarantee that if you try this recipe, your cookies will be just perfect. After I tried them it was so cool to have a delicious base recipe, and I couldn’t wait to try some other ingredients and combinations. All you have to know is the base recipe, and the next step is just experimenting.

My favourite cookie ingredients are white chocolate, macadamia nuts, walnuts, pecans, dried cranberries and blueberries. With these ingredients I tried already several combinations and all of them were so delicious that I almost thought about not giving them away anymore and eat them all by myself. 🙂

Making the cookie dough and especially adding the ingredients is the part I like most. I like to mix them in with my hands. This is also to get the feeling of having the perfect dough texture. I think after several times having baked cookies you get to know how the dough needs to feel for becoming a good cookie.

A good friend of mine just told me recently that she never was that much into cookies until she tried my ones. This was the point she liked cookies again and I was so proud of giving her ‘back’ the fondness of these sweet things…
Imaging that somebody is not liking cookies just because no good ones were around makes me almost sad. So go and let all people know about your best cookie recipes and let everybody like them again or even more…!!! 😉

Cookie dough (originally from David Lebovitz, found on 101 Cookbooks):

preheat the oven to 150 degrees Celsius

100g granulated sugar,
100g light brown sugar,
115g unsalted butter, cold, cut into 1/2-inch (1cm) pieces,
beat together until smooth

1 large egg,
1 tsp vanilla extract,
1/2 tsp baking soda,
mix in

175g all-purpose flour,
1/4 teaspoon salt,
first mix together and afterward into the batter
*at this step mix in the chocolate chips with nuts or dried fruits with your hands

form balls of approx. 5cm diameter on the baking sheet and place with 10cm space of each other

bake for 18 minutes, or until pale golden brown and remove from the oven, let cool on a wire rack

*the proportions for adding the chocolate and nuts is either
200g of chocolate chips with 130g of nuts, or
150g of chocolate chips with 100g of chopped nuts and 100g of dried fruits like cranberries or blueberries