"Those cookies remind me of Grandpa's hands. Like if he had amputated fingers. Why aren't you eating?"
For Father's Day we had a cookout, and it was lovely. I have lived in the rainy, valley-gut of Oregon for my entire life and the weather was perfect -- brief breaks of sun, a thick cloud cover and cool air that carried the smoke away from the open windows. Summer is here, and all three of us, my two sisters and I, are home this summer.
We've kind of hunkered down, as something turns and lowers inside of us, letting us know that it is good to anchor close to home for these three months, to spend time together and laugh, stay up late and eat dinner and lunch out, to branch off in twos and discuss the other, to come together as three and make up again and start the whole thing over again. When September lazes in, living arrangements will change, school will start up, questions that have been put on pause will have to be answered, who knows? But this summer, right now, we are fine just being sisters, together, bitching and laughing and hugging and holding court, watching "Rob and Big" marathons and wandering around dressed for no one, "borrowing" clothing and comparing makeup stashes, making mean comments about each others sunglasses.
The day someone has something negative to say about my vintage Ray-Ban royal blue plastic aviators is the day we have a problem.
The older of my two younger sisters is 21, and is the most fun to watch when she returns. She walks in and her shoulders drop, her chin lifts and she begins to squeak around, looking for food. If people are eating, she edges "bites" off of their plates, drops her mouth and chomps to the quick of your nails, devouring half the sandwich you are holding. She couldn't make it in time (finals and work) for the start of our Father's Day celebration and called, demanding to know the status of the food, wanting to know how much was left of what, and what she had missed. The youngest sister answered, already bored by then, unable and unwilling to recount what we had eaten and what we had saved. There was a tiff.
"No, seriously, she was like...'Well...there were a lot of people here,'. And I was like 'Great. Shut up. You've totally managed to make me love you even more, with that display of kindness.' Champion behavior. Just straight Champ behavior."
Of course there was food left, and when my bird of a sister slunk into the dark house, warm with laughter and amber bottles, she made herself a plate first, before any hugs, before any pointed looks and spilled laughter. But there was plenty of that, too.
These cookies have nothing to do with the above. I made them for something else, and while I thought I was following my standard recipe, it was eleven-thirty at night and I forgot a significant amount of flour. Luckily, they mutated into something just as nice. Like people who try to get you to eat fish from the Willamette, "They're just as good! Extra gills mean extra flavor." If you love a wrinkly, thin and toffee-flavored cookie, you will love this.
T(hin)W(rinkly)C(chewy) Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 cup (2 sticks) softened butter
2 cups packed light-brown sugar
6 tablespoons granulated white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 1/2 cups of AP flour, dip and sweep method
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon pure almond extract
2 1/2 cups of mixed chocolate chips or chunks (I used Guittard's semisweet and milk chocolate)
Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.
In a large bowl, cream the butter, brown sugar and white sugar together until fluffy and creamy, around 1-2 minutes. Crack in the eggs one by one, blending until you've got a light-brown, whipped mass. Add the vanilla and almond extracts. Maybe add some hair.
Sift in the flour, baking powder and soda, salt and mix until combined. Fold in the chocolate, and then using a cookie scoop or a tablespoon measure, scoop out rounded balls and place on an ungreased (you could use parchment) light-colored half-sheet pan. I did two rows of three, and that gave them ample room to spread.
Bake for ten minutes, check, and what you should have are wrinkly, golden-brown edges and a little cluster of melty chips in the center. If you don't have that, bake a little longer and check after two more minutes -- if you like a crisp cookie, do the same. But if you don't, and if you were under the impression that you had in fact followed a recipe that had never yielded these results, feel free to pull the pan from the oven and stare at it. Stare at it, wonder why you're not wearing pants, and why you never cared to pay attention in eighth grade French Class, leaving you a singular lingual failure.
After that, carefully use a spatula to shrug the cookies off of the pan, and move to a cooling rack. If you've used parchment, this will be fully easy -- you could even slide the parchment off of the pan and later, peel the cookies off with ease. If you didn't, again. You've failed your family.
Which is the sweetest taste.
i think it probably just was my oven, because i left them in for an extra five minutes and they turned out perfect. i think next time i'd just bump up the temperature a bit. just wanted to let you know they did turn out in the end! quite yummy too!
Posted by: nadine | June 25, 2007 at 08:53 AM
"Extra Gills mean Extra Flavor"....I LOVE it! Keep up the great cookies and humor...and glad you had a good father's day!
Posted by: Anuhea | June 22, 2007 at 03:27 PM
One of the loveliest things I've read here- your openness is touching and your sentiments on family resounding. And of course, the cookies look fab!
Posted by: Mercedes | June 21, 2007 at 05:43 PM
Love. Your. Blog. Only downside, now as I wander around the button down law firm that I work for I am constantly saying "I'll frost you like a mutherf*cker!" under my breath. Getting fired will be a small price to pay for being exposed to greatness such as yours. Thanks for exposing yourself!
Posted by: Eviedee | June 21, 2007 at 02:44 PM
Ladies, thank you so much. They were a happy accident, for sure, though I still have a soft spot for the "original" version.
Nadine, I'm so sorry things seem to be going wonky! Yes, 300 degrees is the correct temp -- this recipe, and my original one (linked in the post) is based on the Neiman Marcus recipe, and that temp is called for. But we all know ovens can say one thing and mean another -- I've never had issues with the temp before, but if you bumped it up to 325 I'm sure there would be no carnage or suffering. Depending on how your oven bakes, and you would know better than I, you could leave them in longer and just check (through the door/oven light on, if possible) every five minutes or so. I hope things work out!
Posted by: L. | June 21, 2007 at 01:09 PM
only 300 degrees? i tried these today and after ten minutes they were almost just as doughy as when i put them in. i've put them in for a few minutes again now hoping that makes a difference. i've never baked anything at 300 degrees before, so i wanted to double check that that is indeed the right temperature.
Posted by: nadine | June 21, 2007 at 01:01 PM
Thin and chewy? You had me at "Hello."
Posted by: Never teh Bride | June 21, 2007 at 08:59 AM
L., what a fun post!
And these cookies look so great - I haven't made choc chip cookies that turn out thin like these. Time for me to try!
Posted by: Patricia Scarpin | June 21, 2007 at 05:36 AM