Chocolate Chip Cookies for the Baking Challenged

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Hi there! I’m so glad you’re here. Welcome to the indulgent yogi! Why am I doing this? Well, there are many things that have led me to this space. For many years I have passionately cooked, eaten and imbibed with great pleasure. I have also balanced this out with running, walking and yoga. I am still very passionate about walking and yoga. Running, not so much anymore, it hurts! Just as an aside next time you run or see someone running note if they are smiling and look happy. Typically, they look like they are in pain, just sayin! I think I can burn off just as many calorie laden meals with a long fast walk or hot yoga and I smile and feel good while I’m doing it. I love yoga and the way that it balances me, so much that I started teaching 10 years ago. To quote my son Jack, who we call “the voice of reason”, when he was only 8 years old and I was having a stressful moment asked “Mommy, are you going to yoga today? It makes you calmer”. It does make me calmer, more mindful and balanced. Yoga is the great connection between mind, body and spirit. I now like to teach better than my own practice. I still practice for my health and well-being, but I think I made a turning point some years back and realized that sharing my passions with others is more rewarding than keeping it all to myself. Thus, this website! I hope to make this a place where I can share and others can hopefully gain some knowledge and inspiration from my passions and all those feel-good indulgences: food, drink, yoga, wellness, mindfulness, laughter, love and joy! I mean what else is there?! Cookies? Hmmmmmmmmm…my favorite daily treat so that’s where I shall start. And one cookie (or piece of chocolate) a day never hurt anyone! Moderation, my friends is the key to balanced indulgency.

I’ve always been able to put together wonderful savory dishes with a little of this or that but baking has historically been a challenge for me. Maybe it’s the measuring. Even my boys say I’m “baking challenged” and can’t even make chocolate chip cookies with the recipe on the side of the bag of chips. My mother-in-law pumped out the cookies every Christmas by the dozens and left me looking completely inadequate in the eyes of my children. We would arrive to gorgeous cookies in many varieties every holiday with none at home and the boys would roll their eyes whenever I even attempted to bake. After tons of practice and way too much raw dough consumed for my safety, I have the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe. I know you can buy the ready-made dough but they are nothing like the ones made with love and pure ingredients. Good luck!

Some tips before we start:

1-Be sure to use quality ingredients. Yes, the butter needs to be unsalted so you can control how much is in the recipe. Splurge on the chips. Good chocolate is everything! Even the flour needs to be considered.

2-Invest in a Sil Pat. That is a silicone pad that fits in your baking sheets. They are fabulous! No greasing the pan and nothing sticks. Super easy to clean up after.

3-Use 2 spoons to scoop out the dough and put on the pan. Scrape from one to the other to drop out. Don’t skimp on the amount of dough. No, the recipe doesn’t make 5 dozen cookies because no one likes small cookies. If you’re only going to eat one cookie, go BIG!

4-Don’t crowd the pan. If you don’t like to be bunched up in a crowd neither do cookies. I usually only put 8 on at a time about 1 tablespoon in size.

5-Once you drop the cookies on the pan use wet fingers to shape them round and pat them down slightly. They should look like raw cookies not mounds of dough.

6- Turn the pan around 180 degrees mid-way through the cooking time to cook them evenly.

7-There is no standard time for cooking. I estimate 9-11 minutes but set the timer for 9 minutes and check them. Not everybody likes their chocolate chip cookies them same, some chewy, some crunchy and some crunchy edges with soft middles. You get what I mean, so cook them the way you like them. If you do like them cakier don’t press them down too thin in tip #5.

8-It is very important that you let the cookies cool on the pan for a few minutes before removing them, otherwise the spatula will smush them up like snow with a shovel. If you have a cooling rack, use it once they have cooled on the pan until totally cool, like me, then transfer to a storage container.

9-My kids think I’m crazy, and they’re right, but I like to store my cookies in the freezer. I don’t know about you but if I ate 3 dozen cookies before they get stale, I would regret it. Storing them in the freezer keeps them fresher longer and they defrost in minutes. They can also be defrosted for mere seconds in the microwave, and they take on that “just out of the oven” quality. The other great thing about them in the freezer is the out of sight out of mind concept. No, I don’t completely forget they are there, but they are less convenient! Moderation is our friend.