My favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe

Hey friends,
So I have been on a quest for quite some time to find the Best Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. (I want everyone to know that I'm blogging this while watching the Biggest Loser). I tried a NUMBER of different recipes - ones that led to crispy cookies, ones that led to really soft cookies, ones that led to cakey cookies, ones that left to chewy cookies. I tried recipes that involved corn syrup, I tried recipes that involved vinegar (the cakey ones, actually pretty good, just not my favorite...you can't taste the vinegar, don't worry).

Anyway, I finally found a recipe that I've been sticking with. One stipulation: the recipe has shortening in it instead of butter, so if that's not your thing, it might not be the cookie for you. You could always substitute butter for the shortening, but I happen to make it with shortening for 2 reasons:
1) I typically have shortening on hand for use in pie crusts (I make a pie crust that includes both butter and shortening)
2) You don't have to refrigerate shortening, which means that it's always at room temperature, which means that when you decide to make cookies, you don't have to wait for the fat to come to room temperature. Granted, you should still wait for the eggs to come to room temperature before you use them to ensure that all the ingredients blend together at their maximum potential, but you can get there quickly by just putting the eggs in a bowl of warm water - microwaving butter often leads to melted butter which is a bad sign for your cookies (they will turn out super flat)

I wanted to share that recipe with you here. I'll admit, my all time standard cookie is basically the Toll House cookie recipe, but I wanted to find something that tasted just a little bit different. I also really enjoy this recipe because it only uses brown sugar instead of a combination of brown and white sugars - which I enjoy because I heart brown sugar. This is where I ended up:

1 1/4 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
3/4 cup shortening
2 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 3/4 cups All Purpose Flour
1 teaspoon salt (I like to use an extra 1/8 tsp salt because I like salty cookies)
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup walnuts (optional, you could always use 2 cups total chocolate chips, or a different nut, or a mixture of different chocolates)


1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Combine brown sugar, shortening, milk and vanilla in large bowl. Beat at medium speed of electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat egg into creamed mixture.

2. Combine dry ingredients (flour, salt and baking soda). Mix into creamed mixture until just blended. Stir in chocolate chips.

3. Drop rounded tablespoonfuls of dough 3-inches apart onto ungreased baking sheet.

4. Bake 8 to 10 minutes for chewy cookies, or 11 to 13 minutes for crisp cookies. Cool 2 minutes on baking sheet on a cooling rack. Remove cookies to rack to cool completely. I find that 10 minutes is the perfect time for my particular oven, but yours may be different. Don't be afraid to take the cookies out if they look done but they're still super soft, they'll firm up while they're cooling and become wonderfully chewy :-)

Enjoy!