Chocolate chip cookies
Mar 14th, 2008 by Jill
“Would you like some peanut butter cookies?” I asked the kids one day. I’d made them from my mom’s recipe. They’re one of my favorites.
“No thanks!” they both said politely.
Hmmm. I now had a whole plate of cookies to myself. This was good in some ways, but bad in others.
A few weeks later I tried again.
“Would you like some oatmeal cookies?” I asked the kids. I’d made them from my dad’s recipe. He’d perfected it over the years. My mom made them for us kids over and over. They were one of my favorites.
“No thanks!” they said politely.
Hmmm. I had another plate of cookies to myself.
“Do you guys like chocolate chip cookies?” I asked them one day. (G wasn’t a big cookie eater, either, and I was done with eating plates of cookies.)
“Maybe. Usually,” they said.
Aha!
I remembered that my mom made chocolate chip cookies from the Nestle Tollhouse recipe on the back of the semi-sweet chocolate chip bag, so I decided to try that first.
They tried the cookies cautiously. They looked surprised. They liked them! They wanted more. Bingo.
Next time I made them Jack asked, “Can I have some cookie dough?”
I imagined him in the hospital with salmonella poisoning. I imagined being the stepmom who gave him salmonella poisoning.
“No, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Raw eggs are dangerous for kids. I don’t want you to get sick and have to go to the hospital.”
He was disappointed, but he seemed to understand. When he’d left the room and I was sure he wasn’t looking, I ate some raw cookie dough myself.
Every time I made cookies after that, he asked if he could have some raw dough. Every time he asked, I imagined being the stepmom who was responsible for him having to be rushed to the hospital, and I said, “It’s not safe for kids.”
One day, I was talking about my dilemma with some friends who knew a little more about agriculture than I did. They told me that the salmonella bacteria were likely to be on the egg shells, and that if I washed the eggs thoroughly with soap and water before I made the cookie dough, they’d be less likely to make anyone sick.*
Aha!
Now I wash the eggs with dish soap and warm water for a long time. I dry them off. I wash my hands with dish soap and warm water. Jack gets a tiny bowl of cookie dough for a snack while the cookies are baking, and I don’t worry about being a careless child-sickening stepmom. Win-win.
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Chocolate Chip Cookies (adapted from the Nestle Toll House recipe)
- 2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour (My mom taught me never to scoop the flour out of the jar with the measuring cup, but to spoon the flour lightly into the measuring cup, and then to use a knife edge to brush any flour that pokes above the top of the measure cup back off into the flour jar. She also taught me never to pack the flour into the measuring cup.)
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened (Softening the butter — getting it out of the refrigerator a few hours before cooking and letting it come to room temperature — makes a big difference in this recipe.)
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup packed brown sugar (Dark brown sugar is especially good.)
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs
- 2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) semi-sweet chocolate chips
- (This recipe also calls for 1 cup chopped nuts, but the kids don’t like them, so I usually leave them out)
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.
Bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Remove with a spatula to wire racks to cool.
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When Kathy and I got together to bake Christmas cookies last December, we discovered that we both used the same chocolate chip recipe.
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*Note: I am not an expert and cannot vouch for the idea that washing eggs reduces salmonella risk. (Which I’m sure you all know. This disclaimer is for anybody surfing through looking for information about salmonella and eggs and raw cookie dough.)
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P.S. If you haven’t guessed yet, it’s possible that I am a wee bit paranoid. But in a normal, healthy way. You know. The kind of paranoid that manifests itself in me keeping a hard hat by my bed in case of earthquakes. The kind, I’m told, that is mostly amusing. I hope so.
I’ve made these! (sans nuts!)
Love them! And I’m as picky as your step-children.
I work in the finance industry, and after this week I could use a nice, warm plate of chocolate chip cookies. After my yoga class, of course. How’s that for duality?
Always, always looking for recipes. Believe it or not I’ve never made the recipe on the back of the choc. chip cookie bag! I’ve always used my aunt’s recipe…time for something new!
By the way, sometimes I secretly hope they don’t want the cookies so I can make them last all week…love the full plate!!
I have made that recipe many times. I use 3/4 cup of butter instead of one cup for cookies that are a little fluffier. When I have local pecans, I use those in half of the dough – two of my children don’t like nuts in cookies.
I’ve always let my kids eat the cookie dough, just as I did with my mom and dad as a kid. I didn’t realize, though, that salmonella is usually on the shell. I learned something new!
Here’s the big difference between being a mom and a step mom. I eat the cookie dough all the time, in big quantities. I let the kids eat the cookie dough all the time, in big quantities. If they get it, they get it (I figure). If not, not.
First of all, I’m not as worried about things as Jill is. I say this with love. But secondly, and this is an important difference, there just aren’t going to be headlines that say “Biological Mom Gives Children Salmonella!” It’s a significant difference. I’m going to riff on it next time I get a chance.
Yeah! If I had given birth to them, I would give them raw egg dough in a heart beat. I don’t think it’s that big of a risk. But. I feel pretty differently about taking even a small risk like that with your babies. At least without asking first. I guess I could just ask, eh?
Makes sense. I was much more careful about things with my childcare kids than with my own about some things. I just knew what would be ok with my kids, but wasn’t sure how other parents would view some things – so I avoided those things. When I was married to ex, I did childcare in my home on the military installation before the kids were school-age.
I have a friend who ate raw cookie dough for the first time at my house when were were in high school. She went home and told her mom, who almost fainted with fear of Salmonella. We didn’t know that her mom didn’t allow her & her brother to eat raw cookie dough until she’d had quite a bit of it.
Hi Jill,
There must be a conspiracy among stepsons with stepmoms who love to bake cookies. After offering my stepsons all manner of buttery, sugary, nutty goodness in all forms of comestible deliciousness for six months or so, and having all but the Nestle’s Chocolate Chip cookie summarily rejected (and then ending up on my own fat bottom), I stopped making anything but. For years. (And I also forbid cookie dough eating, also for the same paranoid stepmother reasons. But unlike you, I don’t eat it myself, either. I’ve had salmonella poisoning, and will never, ever risk it again!)
Anyway, two weeks ago, after a wistful request from my far-away daughter-in-law, I made a batch of these Ginger Clove Molasses cookies my own kids used to love, intending to mail big yummy batches to them. Hammerhead and Jeep Boy looked at the cooling trays with Bambi/Starved Orphan Eyes. “These aren’t for us?” they asked me.
“You guys don’t like these,” I said. “I made them for you once and you said you didn’t like them.”
“They look so good,” the boys said. “Mmm. They smell so good.”
“Well, have a few. I can make more.” And they ate a whole tray.
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Then, this week, I made a batch of my favorite oatmeal raisin cookies to bring to a pot-luck dinner. Jeep Boy looked at the tray and said, “Oatmeal Raisin cookies? These are my favorite!”
“What are you, kidding me?” I said. “You told me once you hated cookies with raisins in them.”
“No. I love these,” he said, batting his Bambi eyes.
“Knock yourself out, weirdo,” I said. And he ate a whole tray.
So your posting is a very funny coincidence with what is going on here in my home. I told my husband last night I’m going make a batch of cookies every Sunday before they’re back here, a different recipe every time, and see what happens. I guess they’re ready to step out a little–who knew? And maybe, just maybe, this same mysterious transmogrification will happen in your house some day. Just don’t expect any warning.
This is enormously comforting.
Thanks, Aunt Pillowhead.
Is that a President Bush magnet I spy? I can tell by the lean.
Very perceptive! It’s actually a magnet of five of the American presidents standing in a row: Bush senior, Reagan, Carter, Ford and Nixon. I got it as a souvenir at a visit to one of the presidential libraries.