Double Batch of
Tamara's Chocolate Chip Cookies

4 Sticks of butter

1 1/2 cups of granulated sugar

1 1/2 cups of light-brown sugar

4 eggs

4 1/2 cups of flour

 2 tsp. of vanilla

2 tsp. of salt

2 tsp. of baking soda

1 (12 ounce) package of choclate chips

Any brand will do... Nestles has been the favorite.

  1. In a moderately small mixing bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt.
    Stir these ingredients together.

  2. In a much larger bowl, combine both types of sugars. Again, mix them well. Add eggs, and really mix well. Then add the vanilla.
    Don't stir the vanilla in too much, however, it bruises easily.

  3. Straight out of the fridge, open the wrapper of a stick of butter and place it, still wrapped in the partially opened wrapper, on a plate -- microwave the butter for 45 seconds. Microwave to a softened cream, not a pool of liquid. Add the stick of melted butter to the sugars and vanilla. Mix thoroughtly until creamy. Repeat this procedure for each stick of butter until all sticks are added in, stirring each time.
    Adding too many at once or melting the butter too much will make the dough pool -- this is bad.

  4. To this batter, add one cup at a time of the previous flour-mixture, mixing after each cup to prevent clumping of the flour.

  5. Once all the flour mixture is stirred in, if dough is too soft slowly mix in up to 1/4 cup more of flour to further stiffen the dough and to prevent the making process from totally liquefying the cookies.

  6. Mix in a quantity of chocolate chips that you prefer. Remember, more is better.

  7. The 1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon (tablespoon for yourself and teaspoon for another person...) and "taste-test" the sough. This is an important step to quality assurance. Repeat as necessary.

  8. Taking a clean tablespoon, hack out equal dollops of dough and drop onto cookie sheets (evenly spaces...about 2 inches apart).

  9. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Bake one full cookie sheet at a time. Experience has shown that if two sheets are baked at the same time on different racks within the oven, the cookies aren't evenly baked.

  10. Bake each set of dollops 9-10 minutes or until a golden brown coloring is achieved (this is why light brown sugar is used... the color change can easily been seen). You may want to rotate the sheets midway through the baking time... that way all sides of cookies are baked and this avoids oven "hot-spots."

  11. Let cookies set after taking out by cooling for 5 minutes at room temperature.

  12. Pour 1 glass of milk, chocolate milk if you have a deathwish, and enjoy!

Tamara Stoneburner http://www.wwco.com/~tms